Opinion: Make shows as long as they need to be to tell their story or joke or whatever.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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8 is definitely too short unless it’s a one season mini series. 13 is probably just right. Anything longer seems like it’s going to be full of filler material to stretch things out. Remember that older shows with 20 episodes often had one or two clip show/flashback episodes to meet their longer season order.
In the past couple of years I’ve seen a few cases where 8-episode seasons contain a lot of filler, maybe because the writers felt like they couldn’t bring in more than one major plot point in so few installments.
I just want the run time to match the stories they are ready to tell instead of trying to fit everything into a tidy number of episodes at a set episode length.
NO! Fuck no! I'd MUCH rather have a fewer number of episodes that are all good instead of many episodes watered down by filler all throughout. It is a certainty that making more episodes per time period causes the episodes to be less good.
I grew up during the heyday of 20+ episode seasons. This season length only works well if it's something like a sitcom, police procedural, or mystery of the week with only loose continuity. And let's not forget the reason for 20+ episode seasons was to quickly make it to the 80+ episode limit to get into syndication. Back then when you wanted tight, focused storytelling you did mini-series which could be as short as 2 nights of 2 hours or even in some extreme cases be week long with hour or two episodes. On very, very rare occasions these would lead to a regular series but those would almost always pan out to be weak washed out shadows of the mini-series.
Also, who has time to watch all the content we already have? Certainly not fucking me.
Let's not forget that even the 20-episode season greats had their fair share of real stinker episodes, those stinkers increasing in frequency as the series dragged on several seasons longer than it should have due to sheer momentum. And that a huge proportion of 20 episode season television series just sucked and were forgotten about.
We've also moved beyond the three-camera stage plays with very few sets to television shows where one episode is shot on more sets than Friends used for its entire run - because it makes better television. Episodes are also longer than 22 minutes now. (That's what YouTube is for.) These factors demand a lot more effort, which means there's not enough time or labor to pull together 20 episodes in a year.
I think it's that we miss those three camera stage plays.
Atleast I do.
Those long seasons let us have silly, off the wall and yes, sometimes plain bad episodes.
But I'll take them for the extra world building, character development and slower pacing that we get in return.
I don't want or need television to be movie quality. I'm fine taking a hit in production quality if it gets us back some of those lost elements.
I wish. TV shows now are forced to write these incredibly fast paced stories that leave little room for setting or character development.
An example that springs to mind is The Dragon Prince. Despite having the same writers as ATLA, the story feels super rushed and the worldbuilding feels far more disjointed than ATLA, simply because (IMO) the short seasons give the story so little room to breathe.
I agree. I even like the Dragon Prince but it feels so abridged as a result of the short seasons.
ATLA comes to mind as an example of a show that was given room to breath and it was much better for it. I would love to see creators given that much leeway for a multi-season story arc up front again!
I should note - it's not my opinion. Just the articles. :)
Good to know, I think it's a terrible opinion XD
I wish creators had the liberty to write shows of whatever length they felt like, and could end them when they were done with them. Some people write really good long form, other perks are good for a few episodes. Sometimes Sherlock season 4 happens
Part of me does want this.
But I also know how much actors have gone on record saying how much the working conditions absolutely suck in order to have that level of output.
So while I'd love it I don't want it if it can't be done with decent working conditions.
Some of the best shows had this. Star Trek TNG and Voyager. Lost.
How many shitty episodes did they have?
Most of my favorite series would have been even better if they had focused more effort on half or so of the episodes that were good.
It really depends what kind of show. If it's a comedy with standalone episodes then yes, give me more. If it's a show with a main storyline, I prefer shorter seasons because I don't want 5 episodes of drawn out scenes that barely progress the story.
Nah fuck off. The amount of times you see reviews for British series that say something like "Oh my gaaad, briddish shows are so much bedder than ones we get here, it's just a pity it wasn't longer"
Bitch, it was good because it was the right length for the viewer, not the advertiser