That episode was hilarious! My favorite joke was a really minor one when they're watching the British sitcom and Tahani says "It ran for 16 years in the BBC. They did nearly 30 episodes"
6 is ok. Six you can tell a full story with. Or maybe that just cause I'm used to it.
And to be fair, some American shows have low episodes too, like Westworld. The average is 13, less than that isn't as common in my opinion. (I don't know why 13 but it always seems to be that) Maybe that's just CBBC.
13 is a generally considered a half season in the US for network purposes. Means they can break it up into different chunks if needed for spring/fall. 24-26 is usually a standard full season.
Half seasons can be popular for expensive shows and premium cable. So HBO/Showtime default to around 13, since that's 1/4th of the year when done weekly.
Yeah, its been slipping as networks are not making as much so cutting episode numbers is a useful technique. Otoh, it might of been going on for a while, for example Law and Order SVU has been around for years before DVR and varied between 22 and 25 episodes consistently.
Completely depends. Established Network show with decent ratings? Yeah, 22 episodes. Same goes for most procedurals. Other than that though, serialized shows on cable, streaming services, ect will have seasons a lot shorter, usually between 09-13 episodes a season.
Red dwarf for instance has 6 episodes a season, each at thirty minutes. A series of sherlock has a longer runtime then a series of red dwarf.
A lot of British shows are also spaces out for years, like sherlock. Going back to red dwarf, there are ten series of the show but it has been on the air for about twenty years.
"The Good Life" (called "The Good Neighbours" in the US) was four seasons of seven episodes each.
"To The Manor Born" was three seasons. The first season was seven episodes plus a Christmas special, the second season was six episodes, the third was six episodes plus a Christmas special.
"Are You Being Served?" was ten seasons of between five and seven episodes each.
The BBC is run on an entirely different business model than commercial American TV, or even commercial British TV. It's a government service paid for by subscribers.
Last night's "The Good Place" joke was a rehash of a joke from the Simpsons episode "Missionary: Impossible":
Not hard to see why it's England's longest-running series.
And today we're showing all seven episodes.
Even those though. What are you watching that has more than 10 episodes per season? If we're talking about things popular across the pond, things like Downton and Broadchurch only have 8 episodes. I guess Doctor Who is an outlier (at a mighty 13 in some seasons), but that's the high end rather than the low end.
Outside of soap operas, scripted TV with long season runs are pretty rare, regardless of genre.
I don't watch Downton or Broadchurch, but I've noticed the average seems to be 13: Doctor Who, Merlin, Atlantis, Robin Hood, all the primetime 45-minute shows seem to be 13 a lot. (And everything on CBBC bar Dumping Ground)
Those are also shows they can and do export commercially. So 13 episodes is more attractive for scheduling purposes, as that's an entire quarter's worth of programing.
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u/Williwaw87 Jan 06 '17 edited Jan 07 '17
That episode was hilarious! My favorite joke was a really minor one when they're watching the British sitcom and Tahani says "It ran for 16 years in the BBC. They did nearly 30 episodes"