I am also kind of losing steam on season two, but only like two eps in. I think that in my case the issue is kind of the frustration of the time jumps and that it keeps going like two steps forward and like one or one and a half backwards. Though I guess they want to create the feeling, so I guess it is working. Same thing happens with other shows that do similar (or in other cases seem to try so hard to not reach a real point until like the last ep or two). I enjoy when they can land it, but I tend to kind of hate whole seasons until “the big reveal” or whatever is able to make it worthwhile.
When I watched the first season of Severance, I had just finished Pantheon and liked that it chose to end after two seasons. So after the first season of Severance, I was hoping that it would not try to run more than two or three. It is wild how much they can make these modern shows pack basically the slowness of older 25 ep seasons of older shows.
Kind of the same annoyance happens when I find what seems to be a long-form YouTube doc/deep-dive. But realize that it is all AI and keeps somehow constantly repeating the same information in a circular form instead of more information (gotten real good at picking up on that shit). Or like supper click-bait “articles” that have multiple “next page” bits at the end of each page. Just always circle with “but that is when the crucial and amazing blah blah” with like a few sentences that “advance” the topic (and of course the page is just loaded with ads).
I agree about them being a lot of filler for a lot of things (really depends on the channel and the topic). That Disney Fastpass one was really good, and really made me glad that I only went to Disney World twice back in the early 00s when the passes were much simpler. Was shocked but not surprised to see how fucked they made it into. If you have to pre-plan what you want to do each hour of the trip, it really takes all the fun out of shit (and really fucks anyone that hasn’t been before not knowing anything). It is impressive how much joy the min/max crowd get out of the current system, but really sad all at the same time.
The only mostly gaming long-form YT docs that I get excited to see pop-up are from Down the Rabbit Hole. I was not prepared to actually get interested enough in learning about EVE Online to sit through a 6hr video (broke it into a few chunks). I went to check out some other ones to see what others have made, and even with much much shorter run-times they weren’t as interesting.
Also recommend “The Story of the Internet Hero Who Grinded to Level 99 in the First Area of Final Fantasy VII” from Cybershell. Pretty funny watch all about a guy that grinded out getting Cloud and Berret to level 99 in the first part of the game. All because of spite. Only a 18min run-time.