The Problem With Set-Up Seasons

Set-up seasons aren’t new to TV, but June 2024 was notable for having multiple of these types of seasons with The Boys, The Bear, and House of the Dragon all trying to pull it off.

A lot of you may have read the headline and thought to yourself, “What exactly quantifies a set-up season?” In my view, a set-up season is one that makes sacrifices in order to propel and set up the next season.

This could include incomplete arcs and/or major upheavals designed to set up the following season. Most of all, the quality of the season is contingent on the subsequent season. Some examples include Snowfall Season 5, Mad Men Season 6, and Friday Night Lights Season 2.

Now, I have no problem with a season being used to build the narrative for the next. I don’t think all of them are bad—quite the contrary in some cases. Mad Men Season 6 is one of my favorite seasons of the show and one of my favorite seasons of TV in general.

It masterfully sets up Don Draper’s arc for Season 7, despite relying on Season 7 to fulfill the main part of that arc. Mad Men uses more of a character beat than a plot line in terms of set-up, which works fantastically in pushing the characters to the forefront.

Snowfall Season 5, on the other hand, is more of a plot setup that meanders slightly but is wholly effective at setting up the final season. It uses its season finale to lay the groundwork for the plot that drives the final season, and most of the season in general sacrifices itself for that finale to work.

Luckily for the show, the finale is one of the finest episodes of the entire series, and the final season does a fantastic job building on that groundwork.

The real problem with set-up seasons is that they are contingent on what happens next to deliver, to the point where they run the risk of being what takes down the show. A perfect example of this is How I Met Your Mother.

There are essentially nine seasons of setup leading up to one major finale, which ended up being one of the most disappointing episodes of a TV show ever.

It’s like finding the perfect cake recipe, perfectly measuring the ingredients, baking it to perfection, icing it with the Midas touch, and cutting the perfect slice only to dig in and realize you added salt instead of sugar. It’s heartbreaking because you’ve spent so much time and effort awaiting it, and the show fails to deliver.

That’s why it can hurt when these shows use a season primarily to push forward to the next. It can work, but it can also be the cause of downfall because it’s when they start making cuts in order to build up. Game of Thrones did it, Dexter did it, and How I Met Your Mother did it.

Not to say that’s what will happen to the shows currently employing this strategy, but they are cautionary tales, and the current crop is already cutting some corners to achieve the perfect season.

House of the Dragon is a perfect example. The show cuts so many corners solely to build to the next season, so much so that it sacrifices its finale. The entire episode feels like a mid-season episode meant to set up the next episode rather than an actual season finale.

It’s such an odd point to end, and the cracks started showing even before that. It sacrifices the reactions of characters to major events to push the plot forward, but the plot itself is only pushed forward every few episodes.

It’s stuck in an endless cycle of having a major plot point, then slowing down and struggling to mention those major events, then having another major event. It jumps through so many major points, and perhaps the biggest sin is that it doesn’t sacrifice plot for character because it fails to do that too.

There are some characters that are more interesting in Season 2 than in Season 1, mostly some of the Greens, but so much time is spent with the main characters and repetitive arcs that add nothing to the ongoing conflict. Rhaenyra, Alicent, and Daemon all essentially go through the same arc for the entire season that keeps repeating without developing beyond that.

They take up so much screen time that it ends up taking away from the characters with more compelling arcs who aren’t given enough time to develop those arcs. Criston Cole becomes much more interesting, but the show moves away from him in the second half. Aemond has a hint of an arc, only to be pushed back into just being a character who moves the plot forward.

Corlys Velaryon could have had a fantastic arc of loss and dealing with his past while becoming the hand of the queen, but it struggles to address any of that. This is just the tip of the iceberg—so many other characters suffer from similar mishandling to push forward the set-up for Seasons 3 and 4.

The big issue here, I find, is that Season 1 is also a set-up for the war. It is a much better set-up because it effectively develops characters and stakes while managing backstory and covering a lot of ground. It’s not perfect, but it makes the war interesting.

Conversely, season 2 struggles because it doesn’t cover nearly as much ground, rushes to cover more when necessary and doesn’t make the war or the characters any more interesting, except for a few exceptions like Aegon. In my opinion, it’s not a great set-up and falls into the same trap as some of the other shows that failed.

The Boys Season 4 is another interesting case because every single season essentially sets up the same conflict with minor tweaks. It never really breaks the cycle of lack of consequences in-world. It sets up very high stakes but feels hesitant to follow through on the repercussions of those stakes. It has the same issues as Stranger Things in that regard, unlike the penultimate finale of that show.

The Boys’ finale finally did something bold. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it did break the metaphorical wheel to some degree. Don’t get me wrong, the show does rush to become a set-up, but it’s good set-up. I have major issues with the season itself, as it struggles to balance standing out and being repetitive. I found it to be the weakest season yet, but the final season will determine how people look back at this season.

That holds the same for The Bear Season 3. I wrote about it in my review of the season. If Season 4 builds upon the set-up masterfully, we’ll look back at this season with rose-tinted glasses. But if it doesn’t, it’ll be viewed as a turning point for the worse. It very much sacrifices elements of the show to push forward, and while it feels like an incomplete season, I must say it is by far my favorite of the June releases. It still delivers some incredible television despite feeling like half a season.

It does have some very clear flaws that pull it down, but it sets up some important arcs and moments for Season 4 to build upon, which, to me, feels like good setup. But to hammer back the initial point, the problem with set-up seasons is that they hinge so much on the subsequent seasons that it’s hard to judge them on their own merits or lack thereof without seeing the complete package.

Where The Bear has the advantage is that it will likely deliver its next season in June 2025, while the others might not even be ready for June 2026. This show has the best chance to redeem itself, and I really hope it can efficiently weave together these seasons into something truly compelling.

The truth is that I love TV shows. It’s my favorite medium, and I always wish for every show I watch to be good. I try my best to view it with the most objective lens possible while trying to love everything I watch.

The point is that I want all three of these shows to follow through on what they’ve set the stage for. I hope all of them make a legitimate comeback because all three are shows I love or have loved at various points of their development, and I would be devastated if any of them struggled to follow through.

The truth is, there’s also a massive upside when it’s done right. I don’t know if these shows have perfectly achieved that, but I’m sure of one thing—the better the successive seasons of these shows are, the better their latest season will be remembered.

Thank you for reading!