Pristine River Is Netflix’s Longest Drama (And Here’s Why It Matters)

Netflix isn’t known for running its original shows for more than a few seasons, but there are a few affordable hits that have managed to buck that trend. A forested river one of these series. There is a romantic drama season six debuts in December but there is currently no end in sight for his Netflix series. In fact, the recent announcement only confirmed this A forested river is now tied for the longest run in Netflix history.

With almost two months to go before the sixth season premiere of Virgin River, Netflix announced the continuation of the series for a seventh season. It does A forested river only the third Netflix original series to reach the 7 season mark Orange is the new black and Grace and Frankie. Of the three shows, A forested river the only one still airing new episodes so it has a lot of potential to reach season 8.

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When you think of some of Netflix’s biggest hits, A forested river may not come to mind. But this series has survived almost everything the streamer has released over the years. Crown and House of cards both ran for six seasons, and Other people’s things ends after the upcoming fifth season.

This sustained success for A forested river is massive because it could change Netflix’s approach to its original shows in the future. A forested river able to work more like a traditional TV show, exactly the kind of programming Netflix desperately needs.

There are several different ways A forested river works more traditionally. First of all, it is in his budget and production schedule. This is a series that doesn’t have big stars, extravagant sets or visual effects that stretch the budget. This mostly takes place in the same city, allowing the production to keep the same sets season after season. All this takes into account the production schedule that allows A forested river return with new seasons annually.

A forested river The premiere took place in 2019, and already has six seasons. On the other end of the spectrum you have shows like Other people’s things which has only aired four seasons since its premiere in 2016. Bridgerton produced three seasons, half as many as A forested riverdespite the fact that the premiere took place only a year later.

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This has caused frustration for TV fans with Netflix subscriptions as they have to wait years between seasons of their favorite shows. Meanwhile, A forested river has consistently produced at least one season every year since its first debut, and that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.

Perhaps more importantly for Netflix, it now has another show with an actual library of episodes. Long-running shows have often had sustained success in the streaming world, which has been a problem for Netflix when it comes to original programming. Subscribers are pretty much trained to wait to see if a show gets canceled after a season or two before watching it because the trend has become so worrisome for streamers. When fans get hooked on a show, they can go through every episode in a fairly short amount of time.

This library situation is like this helped make Costumes the breakthrough streaming success of 2023. When Netflix users discovered Costumes last summer they found him with eight seasons under his belt. Costumes it’s a show that users could watch for weeks or months because there was already a significant backlog of episodes that needed to be worked through.

Very few Netflix shows can deliver that. A forested river is now approaching 70 episodes, giving fans plenty to watch as they dive in.

These are the kinds of shows Netflix needs if the streamer hopes to create more hit TV shows. Chasing big-budget intellectual property projects can attract attention, but those titles often don’t have enough staying power to anchor the entire network. A forested river gives Netflix a legitimate blueprint for future projects. Whether or not the streamer follows through on this plan is another story.