Paatal Lok, Severance And The Slow Burn Keeping Prestige TV Alive

🍃We are living in the age of information overload where popcorn entertainment is a dime a dozen — a market that Netflix has cornered like no one else right now. Fluff films and TV shows stumble out of its corridors every week. Good shows that do not meet arbitrary internal metrics of viewership are axed mercilessly, while the Shein variety of content is greenlit with more frequency. Like fast fashion, fast TV is also symptomatic of late-stage capitalism’s inherent need for insatiable hunger in its consumers. It does not need an audience that will last a lifetime. So, we have resigned ourselves to consuming art forms that don’t require critical thinking.

However, like a true Bengali who cherishes the soft, golden aloo (potato) in their biryani but will always appreciate the juicy, succulent pieces of meat in it far more, audiences will also reach out for shows that tell stories where the high-quality proteins and fats meld together to uplift the humble carbs and not the other way around. The existence, appreciation, and popularity of shows like Paatal Lok (2020) (Prime Video) and Severanceꦍ (2022) (Apple TV+) proves this fundamental truth. It also signals that the golden age of TV, aka prestige TV, can survive only when they are allowed to take things slow. Fast TV, like fast fashion, is bad for the environment as much as our minds and souls, and needs to give way to slow TV — and this has got nothing to do with the pacing of the narrative.

The pits and peaks of Prestige TV

We cannot talk about prestige TV only in terms of streaming. These shows, considered a higher form of storytelling, were birthed on broadcast television where it was the norm to have new seasons debut every year without fail and for each season to have plenty of filler episodes where nothing ever happened that aided the progress of the plot. Some trace the birth of prestige TV back to the Sopranos (1999), some noticed it first in Mad Men (2007) and Breaking Bad (2008), but it ultimately faltered with Game of Thrones.

In 2017, the Game of Thrones🌜 showrunners boasted about how their entire series is “a 73-hour movie.” And they weren’t the only ones. The common rhetoric became that TV has become so much better than film now. So, you had to bring all your faculties and keep your enthusiasm high for the entire 70+ hours of it.

For a while Game of Thronesཧ dominated every conversation about how good, how ‘cinematic’, how ‘novelistic’ television could be if only the budgets were bigger and the dragons more menacing. Then the final two seasons came and shattered the legacy built by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. In their bid to compete with the grand scale of cinema, Weiss and Benioff sacrificed something vital, the cornerstone of prestige TV: rock-solid writing that has to trump extravagant style and pomp. They also forgot to respect the episodic nature of television and rushed through to an end that felt hurried and unearned.

This has also been a cardinal sin for blockbuster TV, which tried to take over prestige TV in 2022 with epic fantasy shows like HBO’s House of The Dragon and Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The streaming wars were reduced to a gimmicky battle of the budgets as both shows tried to capitalise on the legacy of their predecessors. However, with another looming recession, the reign of blockbuster TV seems to be over before the term could take proper root in the ever-shifting pop culture zeitgeist. House of The Dragon still has the potential to return to glory if it wants to leave a better legacy than Game of Thronesꦇ but it has to go back to its roots. However, George RR Martin expressed his disappointment with the shortcuts being taken by showrunner Ryan Condal, warning, “There are larger and more toxic butterflies to come.”

﷽A well-made show that can be considered prestige TV will use its visual and sensory aesthetics, pauses and noises to dance in tandem with the writing and tell the story.

Why Paatal Lok is a great example of slow TV

Speaking to The Indian Express🍎, Jaideep Ahlawat spoke in favour of good things taking their own sweet time, “Acchi cheesein banne mein time lagta hai, bas itna maan lijiye (Good things take time to develop, just accept that),” also adding, “Now that the wait is over, I am just hoping that it reaches the audience and they understand why we took so long to come up with the new season.”

Paatal Lok🦂 faced growing pains for its political stance. The Covid-19 pandemic further delayed things. The Sudip Sharma creation took five years to deliver season two and it has been unanimously praised. The second season benefits from an even more engaging story, complex characterisation, stunning cinematography, and tremendous performances.

Five years do not need to be the standard for slow TV. Being stuck in development hell is not healthy for anyone. True Detective𓃲 took four years to return with its third season after a middling season two had turned many fans away. The fourth season, created by Issa López, had to do a complete overhaul of the old format to make a triumphant return.

Lee Sung Jin is following a similar path with Beef 😼(2023), the cathartic story of a violent meet-cute starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong. What was meant to be a limited series, has been greenlit for a second season by Netflix (a rarity for a platform that has now become synonymous with cancelling shows before their time). But instead of bringing back the old cast, Jin will be attempting to recreate the chaotic brilliance of season one with Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, and the terribly underappreciated Charles Melton.

Another series that is returning to conclude its story on Netflix can be considered prestige comedy. Mo 🔴(2022), which follows the story of a Palestinian refugee seeking asylum and citizenship in the USA, was dramatically cancelled shortly after a season two renewal. It has taken three years for it to return.

It is a tightrope walk ultimately. But prestige shows need breathing space for the creative process to thrive. Post-production work on shows of such scale also take time. Streaming giants with their deeper pockets can afford them this space. Ahlawat’s alleged salary hike between the two seasons of Paatal Lok♛ has been just as impressive as the representation of Nagamese people. These are two things — talent wage gap and authentic representation — mainstream we are still eons away from witnessing in Hindi films.

Hollywood is faring better but the cracks are appearing

Hollywood has been doing much better with prestige TV. But the pressures of consistently delivering new seasons that dazzle and one-up previous seasons is visibly having an effect on many of them. The cracks are appearing even though it is leading to a good kind of insanity in experimentation of form and narrative styles. The critically acclaimed The Bear෴ (2022) gave us a second season that was like witnessing poetry in motion. It has faltered into territory that is more showy in its third season. The showrunners have played around with technique, but it is far from finessed. A more relaxed deadline would have helped. Creativity fatigue is also a real thing.

The production on Severance🔯 season two was initially delayed due to the Hollywood writers' strike (WGA) and actors' strike (SAG-AFTRA) in 2023. So, we had to wait three years to find out what really happened to our “innies” after that nail-biting season one climax in the show created by Dan Erickson and executive produced by former comedy superstar, Ben Stiller. If early reviews (plus the first few episodes) are to be believed, the wait has been well worth it and that is two wins for slow TV in 2025 and we are still in January.

Debiparna Chakraborty is an independent Film, TV and Pop Culture journalist who has been feeding into the great sucking maw of the internet since 2010.