Cinema News: How the limited series boom went bust

June 8, 2026 | View in browser

Five cutouts of actors from Emmy-nominated limited series on a red background with yellow and orange shapes.

By Glenn Whipp

Columnist

Maybe you’re looking for a little light entertainment, a short TV series you can stream in a weekend, something to take your mind off the headlines, the price of gas and the health of the Dodgers’ pitching staff.

Recommendations, you ask.

Have you seen the one about the next-door neighbor suspected of bludgeoning his first wife? Or the series looking at the real-life serial killer who dug up corpses and made furniture and kitchenware from their bones and skin?

Too dark? How about one centered on the kidnapping of a child? Or a group of shipwrecked boys turning into savages and killing one another? Or two self-loathing stepbrothers and their toxic, brutally violent codependence?

On second thought, maybe it’s better just to turn off the TV and ponder whether an overheated tank containing toxic chemicals might someday explode in your neighborhood.

Try that instead. You’ll sleep better tonight.

Suffice it to say that, while you might find this year’s limited series Emmy contenders on streaming platforms’ “watch in a weekend” row, you won’t find many in the “looking for a laugh” section, though I do smile every time I think of a passive-aggressive Linda Cardellini asking police detectives, “Can you speak up?” on “DTF St. Louis.” (And, yes, she’s playing a character suspected of murdering her husband. Because this year, how could she not?)

Maybe your taste runs black as a moonless night, so you’re OK with this. Otherwise, you can be forgiven for wondering what happened to the great, splashy-event limited series that were the talk of the Emmys just a few years ago. Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Zoë Kravitz and Laura Dern teaming up as super-friends uncovering “Big Little Lies.” Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon throwing down in “Feud: Bette and Joan.” Kate Winslet’s tour-de-force vaping in “Mare of Easttown.” Barry Jenkins’ bold, beautiful adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad.” The horrifying history lesson of “Chernobyl.”

And I’m not cherry-picking the highlights. Recent limited series Emmy winners include Anya Taylor-Joy’s star-making turn in “The Queen’s Gambit,” the first (and still best) season of “The White Lotus” and the righteous ambition of “Watchmen.” And then throw in the two disruptive, disturbing British imports — “Baby Reindeer” and “Adolescence” — for good measure.

For a time, it felt like you couldn’t keep up with all the multipart programming. Streaming platforms eagerly embraced the limited series format. Money was no object because winning subscribers was paramount. There were so many Emmy contenders that, around the turn of the decade, people were calling for the Television Academy to expand the limited series category to eight nominees, matching the number in the drama and comedy series categories. Do that, the argument went, and shows like “Masters of the Air” could buzz the tower too.

But that change never happened, and let’s be thankful for small miracles. The limited series boom didn’t last — couldn’t last — because platforms needed to turn a profit (or at least lose less money) and appease investors. Orders for scripted shows have been trending downward, and what is being made, psychological crime dramas and twisty mysteries, have the feel of far-fetched soaps these days. They’re still (mostly) watchable, elevated by actors happy to get the work. But plodding through them offers little pleasure, guilty or otherwise.

Compare the production values on HBO’s “The Undoing” (those Kidman coats!) with “The Beast in Me” or “All Her Fault” and you’ll remember the days when melodrama could be so much fun. (Which leads me to wonder: When is “True Detective” coming back, hopefully with Nicolas Cage?)

No, we won’t be returning to the time when the Television Academy was forced to merge limited series and TV movies into one category. But the landscape is indeed dire when deplorable, exploitative trash like “Love Story” figures to earn multiple nominations because of its popularity and, one would suppose, a nostalgia for a time when couples had to find other ways to ignore each other’s needs than checking their smartphones.

The category would look a little stronger this year if “Task” — another crime drama, yes, but a gripping one — had landed in limited series, which was how the show was originally conceived. But HBO Max had to go and renew the series for a second season, putting it in the drama categories, where we will gladly welcome Tom Pelphrey and Mark Ruffalo as nominees.

Which leaves us with the second season of “Beef,” Lee Sung Jin’s anthology series about enmity, envy and the multiple ways that blood orange juice can be made, as the presumptive front-runner. “Beef” dominated the 2024 Emmys for its first season, winning eight categories, including prizes for lead actors Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, as well as writing, directing and series. While the new edition, starring Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny as a Gen-Z couple dreaming and scheming toward upward mobility, didn’t produce the buzz or ratings of its predecessor, it was bingeable and, sometimes, darkly funny.

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“DTF St. Louis,” as mentioned earlier, had its share of humor too, deadpan and surreal and always unpredictable. Steven Conrad’s off-kilter series is ostensibly a murder mystery too, but it’s really about suburban isolation and loneliness. Stars Cardellini, David Harbour and Jason Bateman have never been better, and Joy Sunday and Richard Jenkins, playing law enforcement investigators, made for such an odd, interesting couple that Conrad should develop a spinoff starring them.

So enjoy these exceptions and hope 2026 is an off year. Television is in a slump right now, far removed from its golden age. But if history tells us anything, it’s that these things are cyclical, and abundance might be just around the corner. You know what history also tells us? James A. Garfield was a good and decent man and that the influence peddling and political loyalism seen in Washington today have a long precedent in American politics. (You should check out Netflix’s limited series “Death by Lightning” too. Even if it’s centered on a murder — an assassination, no less — at least you’ll learn something.)

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