Just recently, admitting that you watch TV series was something a little shameful, a kind of guilty pleasure. But today, at meetings with friends, new series are often discussed, the days are counting down until the release of the new season, and the series themselves often become the driving force for social reforms. 
Why are they so popular?
As soon as the first TV series appeared in the early 50s of the last century, their soap opera format remained virtually unchanged until the end of the 90s.
In the 80s and 90s, the famous “Alf”, “Friends” came out and despite the fact that they were head and shoulders above the usual “Santa Barbara” with endless discussion of who is whose relative and who exactly at the moment lies in a coma and will wake up in five years. However, they often still remained a product of TV with a vertical plot, where each episode was almost always a separate story and you could start watching from any moment.
But then digitalization appeared. 
Still from the series "Monster" (Netflix)
In 2014, Netflix began filming and showing content exclusively in formats from 4K to Ultra HD. They already understood that in the future it would be difficult to find a TV that did not support these formats.
The difference between TV series and cinema first blurred in terms of quality, and the fact that TV series have poor picture quality, while cinema has high picture quality, ceased to be relevant. 
Still from the series "Breaking Bad"
Thanks to the growing budgets of TV series, directors, showrunners, screenwriters, cameramen and artists of the so-called first echelon are starting to deal with them. Visual style, plot twists, acting - everything becomes of the same level (and in some places even higher) as feature films. 
Still from the series "Game of Thrones"
Changes in modern times have also had an impact. Leisure is now an economic resource. TV series are a convenient way to spend a small amount of free time. An episode usually lasts no more than an hour, but to go to the cinema you need to budget several hours, and who can guarantee that you will like the film.
Thanks to the large selection, you can safely stop the series if you don’t like it and switch to another. 
Still from the series "Ted Lasso"
It’s interesting that people prefer to go to cinemas to watch light films, such as family films, blockbusters and all sorts of superhero franchises that were made for the big screen. On the one hand, the viewer is not too demanding about the plot of such a film, but on the other hand, he wants to see a high-quality and large-scale picture. Significantly fewer spectators go to see drama in the cinema and, thus, it smoothly transitioned into series.
Everyone is tired of monotonous characters, stupid jokes that wander from sitcom to sitcom, and predictable plot developments. The characters become more complex and unusual: Walter White in Breaking Bad, Ted Lasso in the series of the same name, The Sopranos, where a brutal mafioso visits a psychiatrist, and so on. 
Still from the series "The Morning Show"
The influence of TV series on society has become great.
For example, in the series “13 Reasons Why” the issue of bullying and teenage suicide is actively raised. "Black Mirror", which is increasingly remembered when the next new technology arises. In "The Morning Show" you can see the current issue of the influence of power in the workplace, harassment and how they prefer to deal with this issue in the media. In “Sex Education,” as the title makes clear, the refrain is the importance of sex education for teenagers, where sex itself is not in the first place, pushing forward the importance of active consent, conversations and the ability to hear and listen to your partner. The latter, by the way, really had a great impact on the audience, because presenting important information in an entertaining format is, of course, more attractive than lectures, articles and scientific podcasts. 
Still from the TV series "Mindhunter" (directed by David Fincher)
Directors such as Ridley Scott, the Wachowski sisters, and David Fincher began working with streaming services. Actors who previously appeared exclusively in feature films are no longer “afraid” of TV series and now appear in various HBO or Netflix projects, which suggests that TV series are now the new cinema.
What are your favorite TV series? Let's make a selection in the comments of what we will watch on long winter evenings.
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