Short TV Seasons

[never_at_home]

The new show Humans just finished its first season (series) and has been renewed for another. What is strange to me is the small number of episodes that it had for its first season, with the same small number for the second: EIGHT EPISODES.

I remember the day when shows had 26 episodes per season, half a year's worth of weeks of storytelling.

Comments

[nialla42]

Humans is a UK show (but co-produced by AMC), which has much shorter seasons in general. I've seen some shows with three, six, eight, or ten episodes, though the number can vary from season to season (or series to series, as they'd call it in the UK

[never_at_home]

Do you go back and rewatch a short-season show before it returns for its new season nearly a year later? I've noticed a few of "my" shows that are on their channel/network websites have "rewatch" or "get caught up" options, many of which have all of the previous episodes available online for free. Guess they are aware of the "what happened? I don't remember. It's been too long" syndrome. It just doesn't seem good for their ratings to have such short seasons.

You mentioned UK series, such as HUMANS, usually have shorter seasons. Do you know of any actors who starred in two or more short-seasoned shows within the same year? I suppose the short seasons would allow more flexibility for the cast and crew to do other things more often.

[nialla42]

Sometimes I do a rewatch, it just depends. For example, they did a marathon of the first season of The Last Ship not long before the next season, and I rewatched it, but not with my full attention. There were some twists and turns that I wanted a refresher on how they started. I'm much more likely to simply read up in Wikipedia or another site for summaries.

Even with longer seasons, you have to wait a long time for the next season, and there's even more to forget. I don't like it when they do 20ish episodes and put a break in the middle that's months long. It's enough to break the flow of the narrative, but it's often done to avoid holiday and sports seasons that might draw away the audience. Some shows are getting better at splits and treating it as one production season, but breaking up the plot into two sections.

From what I understand of UK productions, actors are much more flexible in what they do and often don't want to be tied to a long running series. The only reason Doctor Who has gone on so long is they came up with a way

[never_at_home]

"I've also seen a few British shows that literally have ended up without a single original cast member left in the cast within five series."

"There's a reason why there are years between seasons of Sherlock; both of the actors are just too damned busy and getting everyone's calendars to work together isn't easy."

I can see where these reasons might be the weakest parts of having such short runs. If they get renewed, what happens if all of the actors can't come back! It's like "don't get too attached!"