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Opinion: Small screen, big investment: TV episodes have become way too long
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Television
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I miss seasons being like 20 episodes long. Don't they have any idea how hard it is to keep finding new shit to watch when all their series come out 8 episodes at a time.
After not watching them for at least a decade, I'm going back through the old Star Trek seasons (specifically Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager), and each season is between 22 and 26 one hour episodes. So much great stuff!
Yeah I rewatch them every couple years. They're good stuff.
It must have been brutal putting out an hour long episode of sci-fi every two weeks nonstop for years and years. I don't blame studios for moving away from 26 episode seasons but 8-10 22-minute episodes with a new season not releasing for another 1-2 years is bullshit. It was funny to see this in Stranger Things where the kids gave gone from looking like 5th graders to fully grown adults in the span of two seasons.
If you really pay attention, it's not as brutal on the cast as you might think. Only a relatively small amount require the entire crew over an entire hour. Many crew members, even high level ones, have little or even no parts in many episodes, but occasionally they'll have an episode that focuses on their character, often in tandem with another character.
Theoretically, if there are 10-12 episodes that only include 2 or 3 characters for the most part, they can shoot many of them simultaneously, using different crews.
There might be a quick establishing scene here and there that requires other cast members (sending them on the away mission, in the transporter room, Picard barking orders, etc.), but the costumes and sets are fairly static on the ship, so if they have the scrips early, they could shoot a bunch of establishing scenes in a single day, and then edit them into the appropriate episodes.
Much of movie making is simply logistics.
I think the sci-fi aspect adds quite a bit of work when you need to generate a bunch of special effects especially with 1980s and 1990s technology.
Are you a friend of DeSoto?
https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/greatest-generation/
I'll definitely check it out, thanks!
Y'know, I've always followed politics, but it is really getting to me these days, and I'm looking for other outlets for my energy, just to keep my sanity. Guitar has been a big help, but it might be fun to go down a harmless Star Trek rabbit hole for a while, and make it a safe place to escape to.
One of us, one of us....
It used to be 1 year for 20 episodes now it's 2 years for 8
8 episodes that would have been a 2 parter in the old days.
Not only 8 episodes but sometimes the entire 8 episode season on one day which can be watched in an afternoon. The new season comes out 1.5 years later and you have absolutely zero recollection of what happened previously.
Yes and no I miss filler episodes in sitcoms and nonsense like star trek and comedies like IASIP.
I detest making docuseries longer than 90 minutes unless it is outrageous and twisty.
I did like non standard episode counts because I told myself they werent beholden to a certain number and could just tell the story but GoT ruined that theory.
Really? I find American stuff feels so drawn out with like 20 episodes.
I'm not watching tv for quality and efficient story telling.
I'm watching it to waste time. The longer the better.
I only spend my audible credits on audiobooks that are 20+ hours long.
There can be an absolutely amazing audiobook that's 8 hours long but I can't bring myself to spend my credit on it.
Why, I have other things I would rather do with my time than watch crap filler.
It certainly can but it depends on where a show is at in its lifespan. If you're on season 6 or 7 of something, you're going to see a lot of filler episodes.
Yeah but there's way more series made now compared to the 00s and 90s when 20 episodes a season was the norm
But I have to seek them out every time I finish one and the majority of them are garbage. Before, if I found a show I liked it would last me a while. I can only go back and watch Star Trek so many times.
I agree, I find browsing for something new all the time tiring. I would prefer a return to 20 episode seasons.
I thinks that's on purpose so they can keep producing this enormous amount of shitty shows to fill their catalog in order to justify higher subscription prices.
Seems like Netflix has resorted to filling these gaps with reality TV and foreign shows like K-dramas but even that is only a temporary solution.
What tv do you like? (Other than Star Trek)
Did you not have to "seek out" older series too?
Off the top of my head - Justified, Deadwood, Breaking Bad, The Last Kingdom, the first half of game of thrones, It's Always Sunny, various Gundam series, Star Wars Clone Wars and Rebels. A few other animes - cowboy bebop, ghost in the shell, etc.
I did have to seek them out but the point was that I didn't have to do it as often because the show lasted longer. With these short series I have to basically always have "what am I going to watch after this" on my mind. They aren't even long enough to get through an entire weekend if I don't have anything else going on and binge it.
Foundation is on its third series of tomorrow.
Warrior (2019), Severance, Dark, Silo, For All Mankind, Dark Matter (2024), The Expanse all may appeal.
Do you do live-action international series?
I haven't heard of most of those. I'll check them out. I think I did watch one season of the expanse and liked it.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I like your TV taste. Other than the Anime, you and I could be good TV buddies.
Try The Americans, Mad Men, and the Sopranos. If you liked The Last Kingdom, you'll like Vikings, too.
I did watch Mad Men and the sopranos. I couldn't finish mad men because I hated all the characters and the constant infidelity. I finished sopranos but was mid on it for the same reason.