Honestly, it’s just the reality of sci-fi tropes, but I’m feeling a lot of vibe similarities between Cylons and Dune’s Thinking Machines.

Prophecy is fine, but I could go for 20 episode long, and fully episodic, seasons set in the Butlerian Jihad era.

Not committing to rewatch but skimming a Battlestar reaction and again in awe of its pace.

Constantly tension & reveals, but once themes are in place most episodes can be enjoyed as its own 45 minutes.

Very little of the last decade could I pull an episode or two out of a season to rewatch alone.

There’s good shows, but I’m still frustrated at streaming tv’s tone change.

Network stuff was episodic, had character growth & plot progression but episodes largely could be watched/enjoyed free of context.

Everything now is serialized & often feels like a chopped up movie not standalone stories.

Not a lot on my new release radar, first quarter of 2026 has

Jan
-Wonder Man

Feb
-Fallout ends
-The Burbs whole season drop - not sure how I feel there
-Knight of 7 Kingdoms - still haven’t watched House of Dragons so not urgent
-Monarch - still haven’t watched s1

Mar
-Starfleet Academy

When I get back to them, novels feel the same despite being complete works & not episodic releases.

I’m more satisfied chapter a day over 3 weeks for a handful of stories than tearing through 1 in 4 days.

Historically, even stuff like Dune WAS originally a periodical released in parts over a year.

Probably don’t continue Cow til Spawn is done, 3 giant continuities is already too much. X books only get 2+ cuz it’s impossible to do otherwise.

Hope to get back to my 2x2x2 daylong strategy. Reading any more regularly feels too time consuming & less/longer 3x3 sessions drag and lose my attention.

I feel wrong reading or watching multiple weeks/months of a story back to back, hence my 1 per day intent.

Can cheat on Valiant reading 2 series & Spawn works with 1 main book + 1 spinoff w/o breaking continuity. Cow a bit harder but it’s basically just Witchblade/Darkness/Tomb Raider & maxiseries.

Beyond that I’m pretty free of multi-book long reading orders forever. Biggest stuff is like 6 months real time to read 5-10 years of material.

Pretty freeing. This all assumes western civilization survives long enough for me to reach this level of contentment liberated from my own compulsions.

After that I’d really like to shoot for a 1 one hour and 1 half hour series at a time no more than 5 days + a movie twice a week.

Again, nothing else I really feel compelled to binge or work through entire years of a franchise non-stop in sequence.

Also added to my collection of Draculas.

Perfect blend for me has been 3 things throughout the day in 50-ish page sections - 2, 2 and 2.

But that’s still rushed pace, think I more enjoy one segment of each story beside the infinity amount of X books to do.

I will be more at ease with time once past these long multi-book reading orders.