While we’re at it, movies can still be “flicks” even if they don’t flicker, and “footage” nowadays is probably recorded on a medium that can’t be measured in feet.
No, I got what you said. While I wouldn’t quite disagree that Sopranos, The Wire, GoT etc. have fairly pronounced scene/flow breaks, I’ve paid a lot of attention to this detail over several years and I can’t think of many examples that feel as strong or contrived or “hook-y” as the average ones on commercial dramas. If the scene changes and breaks are driven by some anticipation of interruptions, more than by dramatic intent, it doesn’t show. I’d also say there’s a sliding scale between simply positioning breaks for possible commercial insertion, and the grab-the-viewer’s-balls hooking done in most for-commercial shows.
Watching commercial shows on an uninterrupted stream like Vudu or (sometimes) on Hulu makes the contrivances really stand out, on the other hand. Having a major Dun-dun-DUNNNNN! immediately flow into the pickup scene can be Pythonesque.
But all “television shows” are commercial, in the end, so even the free-est director and show runner probably bend a bit to a commercial-driven structure. But the number of HBO shows that completely flaunt their freedom from such limits has been hearteningly high.