Am I the only one who feels this way: very often there's a new series that's really good but then after a few episodes they seem to think they have to flesh it out to make it more interesting.
But that's usually when I lose interest.
So often I have wondered why the F they do that. Personally I feel if you got a good thing going AND a good story-line, there's no need for that.
What usually happens is that political BS enters the scene.

The same is happening now with new series "Deputy". Really a great new series. Now they're beginning to ruin it with another person wanting to run for sheriff, a manipulative unpleasant woman.
Why drag that drama in something that was good and held a lot of promise?

Sometimes it's unavoidable, like in Outlander. That is getting more political now that they are in the States in the time that the upheaval concerning the English was happening.
Okay, that's history, but they're shifting most of the focus of the original story onto that.

Maybe I'm the odd one out who feels that way, but I think it's a shame.

I see it in movie series as well.
Original story gets bogged down with non-cannon backstories.

Gotta remember the TV and movie industries are there to make money first.
Their target audience is accustomed to fast internet research so people tend to 'wonder' how that came to be, what was it like or what happened to lead the characters to this point.
The industry caters to that inquisitive nature with fluff to grab that much more money.

Canon always takes a lower position than money and art is at the very bottom more often than not.

Money is the driving force behind reboots and reimaginings.
Its the reason we get films like Joker and Harley Quinn (awful movies) in a Batman universe.
Frankly, I preferred the Joker better when I didn't know his backstory.
Sometimes you get good filler fluff films like Rogue One and Solo in the Star Wars universe. Thing is, Star Wars really didn't need those back stories.
Star Wars triple trilogy is over. How likely is it you won't see another Star Wars fluff film from Disney? They won't let it go because those backstories, cannon or not, make money.

Law & Order made money.
Law & Order spin-offs made money.
People want more to the story.

Nearly all long running series have backstory segments, sometimes multiple episodes or season arcs.
The new Lost In Space had flashbacks in nearly every episode.
I can somewhat tolerate flashbacks which bring something new but I flat out despise flashbacks which just show segments from previous episodes.
I watch TV shows a season at a time with no commercial interruptions.
Its all fresh in my mind so those repeating flashbacks which do nothing to advance the story are irritating to me.
But, it makes them money so they do it.

It's a weird thing. And I don't think it's necessarily that it makes more money but that people are wired to want drama and BS. And yes, offering that will then make money.

It's not much different when you're writing books. You cannot just give background information on something or someone. Nope. You have to do what's called 'get red T-shirts in': totally unimportant characters that have no real role in the story. You have to create them and have the main character talk to them and then in that dialogue you give that extra information.
Very tedious as you have to still describe that red T-shirt in a way to make them look somewhat interesting, so you waste page after page to convey some info.
I personally hate it when a book has a large section of that stuff all the time, or side-tracks to the main story. I want the main story. I often skip those sections when reading, hihi.
But as an author I myself have to do it too. So I have to write entire sections I myself find a total waste of time. But the main audience likes it that way, even though I don't.
I don't think that has directly to do with money. It's what the audience wants, and yes, then it's likely to sell better.

The term 'red T-shirt' is from Star Trek btw. You always knew when some strange crew member appeared that they were the ones who were going to die. And since most crew wore red T-shirts...