Do you think 22 episode TV seasons are now too long?

No. I hate shows that just have 10 episodes a season and then we have to wait a year for another 10 episodes.

Six to 10 episodes or something nearer that range is what I prefer.

When I saw the quality of some British series with fewer episodes per season, and added to that the differences in constructing a stand-alone season story arc as if each season were the last (due to season renewals being negotiated only after production and airing), I much preferred that to the usually bloated American season of 2x, 3x, 4x as many episodes.

The pace, the clarity, the urgency to tell a story in a short time, the elimination of endless peripheral characters and plot lines, I much preferred that..

Seeing this model adopted by Netflix etc has been great for TV.

I like 12 or 13 for recurring shows. That was what most HBO/Showtimes shows had before streaming took over.

22 is too long for non Dick Wolf type shows.

But 8-10 feels too short and the wait too long for the next season.

However, for limited series? I think 8 is perfect.

Sitcoms? I tend to like longer seasons. But, truthfully, I'm not much of a sitcom guy.

The main problem with US network series is that they go for too many years, not too many episodes.

It's a rare showrunner who can do more than three years of 22 episodes without getting repetitive or having to diverge from the original idea. It's possible, but not common.

22 episodes is not too long if the writing is good. It works for procedurals for a few years until it goes to shit.

The "one big story per season" doesn't work anymore, there's too much badly written filler shit and the pace is too slow. And cable dramas can too fall for this trap, look what happened with The Walking Dead, it's 16 episodes per season and nothing fucking happens for 12 episodes.

22? Kids stuff.

I just finished watching The White Lotus and that was 6 episodes clocking in at about an hour each. I thought that was perfect. I think episodics are fine at 22, but nighttime shows with a continuing story need to tighten it up.

R6 right?

Back in the early days of TV, 39-episode seasons were common, with a summer replacement series filling for the remaining 13 weeks.

[Quote] It seems that network does way too many filler episodes.

I like the occasional filler episode. But i don't think the CW needs to do 20+ episodes. I think 13 to 15 is a good amount.

Yes. Writers just aren't as creative as they once were. Thanks, AIDS.

The wait for Better Call Saul is way too long

10-12 episodes is good for me. Every show should have a recap at the beginning of each season. I can’t remember what happened on a series after a one year break and I’m not doing a rewatch.

I think part of the problem is the fact every show now, be it drama or comedy, has a season-long storyline that too often can't sustain itself beyond 3 or 4 episodes. This is why, as others have noted, we get lots of filler episodes designed just to stretch what's essentially a 4-part episode across 22 weeks. It's exhausting.

As I've noted before, I personally miss the days when TV episodes were self-contained -- i.e., each week's story had absolutely nothing to do with the next week's story (or the week after that and so on) unless it was a 2-part episode for sweeps. I just think shows were more enjoyable in this form and didn't require this huge time commitment because the story didn't cross over to the next installment. Think about shows like I Love Lucy, Twilight Zone, Bewitched, Charlie's Angels, Star Trek, MTM, etc. Yes, that's going way back for examples but I'm just saying TV shows back in the day were far more enjoyable -- and less of a time drain -- than they are now.

[quote]Yes. Writers just aren't as creative as they once were. Thanks, AIDS.

WIth all respect to lost talent, The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under, Dark, La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), Breaking Bad all after the peak of AIDS cases and deaths (The Sopranos began in 1999, so at peak.) It's not as though all talent died with AIDS. The only series I can think of before that that had real merit was Twin Peaks (1990-1991.)

Nope. They're too short.

I much the prefer the 30 episode season.

I always meant to watch greys anatomy- after I watched the first two series. I fingered I would catch up Eventually. Now i doubt I ever will. Way too many seasons and episodes.

I'm from the UK, where 22 episode TV seasons are almost unheard of.

I think 10-13 is the ideal. If you have many more, then the budget doesn't stretch to all of them being good quality, so of course there are going to be 'filler' episodes where very little happens.

That said, I never understood the US model of a season lasting from September to May and showing repeats in weeks where no new episode is available. Here, all episodes are shown, then when the season is over they show something different.

[quote]That said, I never understood the US model of a season lasting from September to May and showing repeats in weeks where no new episode is available. Here, all episodes are shown, then when the season is over they show something different.

In the U.S., the season is so long that there is proper time to gauge audience reaction and the feasibility of renewing the series for another season. Practical in a sense in that it ties the talent to staying on the project (whereas UK crews have moved on to other projects before the decision is made), but it doesn't explain the repeats except maybe in the past to pick up some new viewers on word of mouth and other recommendation. Now that everything is available on demand, it seems doubly without reason. The secondary season was also used to try limited runs of new series that might be started in earnest later, with changes to plot lines character focus, dropping/adding secondary characters, etc. The very idea of seasons seems wrong now.

There has been a paradigm shift and 22 episode seasons are just too long. As R19 notes, the on-demand availability of most things makes the old 22-episode model seem outdated. Viewership models have changed. Even back in the day, I always thought the British model of fewer episodes of higher quality was smarter. HBO copied that long ago. Now the streaming services have made it the norm. Network TV seems so outdated.

I will say that The Good Wife was one of the few network TV shows that did 22 quality episodes a season, except for its last season. It can be done, but I think they ran out of steam in the final season, which was too bad.

I've come to think that 10-13 episodes each season is the correct number.

Some shows, like MTV's Teen Wolf, split their 20+ episodes season story arcs into a double feature (one story arc after the other).

I think Netflix changed the game significantly by making mini series not just for the limited series run.

I like the idea of a show being however long it needs to be. If a writer has a project that is 4 episodes, then let it be 4 episodes. I also like the idea of anthology series and using the same cast to play different parts.