Over the break, I finished season three of “Invincible,” one of my favorite shows on television right now. It was amazing and my friends and I are eagerly awaiting the next season of the show.
I am not alone in this mindset. Fans of the series expressed their love of the season finally and their excitement about what is to come next. Even Amazon is joining in on the excitement, posting memes about when the next season will be announced.
There is nothing wrong with building excitement and expressing it online. Where things get messy is when it begins to affect the quality of the show.
A major point of criticism season three of “Invincible” has faced is its animation and how much of a downgrade it is. This criticism isn’t entirely unfounded, as the season had a multitude of animation errors and janky-looking scenes. This is also elevated by the last two episodes of the season having significantly better animation than the rest of the season.
With this criticism, audiences instinctively blamed Amazon, the show’s publisher, for the lack of funding for the show. While this may be true, money only goes so far. I find that the main reason the animation suffered is because the studio had less time to make the season.
For context, season one of “Invincible” was in development for three years with eight episodes being created. Seasons two and three were in development for two years each and had the same number of episodes per season.
The developers of the series had to crank out the same number of episodes but in significantly less time. Of course, this would hurt the animation quality in some areas of the season.
It would be easy to blame Amazon for this, as they ultimately have a say when everything is set to release. However, I shift my blame towards why Amazon chooses to have these short deadlines: impatient audiences.
Impatient audiences desire immediate gratification and are becoming increasingly common due to the rapid pace of technology and the on-demand nature of modern media and experiences. Audiences are also consuming more media than ever, with binge-watching becoming a popular form of watching television.
Audiences are now tailored to getting all the media they will ever want at the touch of a button, this is the reality we live in. What is also a reality is that the creation of media takes time, which goes against this new instant gratification world we live in. With this, audiences are more impatient than ever and are less tolerant of waiting for the release of the art they are excited about.
“Invincible” is not the only show that suffers from this. “Attack on Titan,” one of the most critically acclaimed shows of all time, had a normally extended rollout due to audience demand for the show to release. With a two-part season three, two-part season four and two movies, each one is an hour-and-a-half.
This isn’t limited to television shows. Video games also face this issue, specifically live-service games.
“Destiny 2” and “Call of Duty” are the two biggest examples. The fan bases of these games are so rabid for content, it forces developers to rush things out the door. It’s a big reason why these two gaming franchises are struggling right now and it’s frustrating to see.
Then there is the most aggravating aspect about all of this: delays.
Sometimes projects just need more time to get made. Some glitches and bugs, re-recording voice lines, script rewrites and so on. Stuff happens and the release date needs to get pushed back.
To quote Shigeru Miyamoto, designer, producer and game director at Nintendo. “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”
While this quote is specific to gaming, it can also apply to other art forms. However, impatient audiences could care less. They will whine and complain online that they can’t experience it right now and some creators just don’t want to deal with that backlash.
So, they push the project out with all of its issues, and then audiences will complain about these issues.
Now, I understand audiences are not always to blame. Some artists and publishers hurt the art themselves. The most recent example I can think of is PlayBoi Carti’s newest album, “MUSIC.” The album was teased and pushed back again and again and again and spontaneously dropped last week, and it still sounds unfinished.
The point is, art will take as long as it needs to finish. If you rush it, there will be problems. You don’t always need the newest thing right now. There is so much art already in the world, use the time you have to experience that art instead of complaining about waiting for the latest thing.
