22 episodes vs. 13 episodes

[KB24]

I don't think its up to writers to set their episodes, storylines, and quality out. I think a network or production and budget such much stipulate how many hours and time slots and scheduling things go.

In the end it's not the quality, but the money and how easy and expensive they can make a DVD set. Soon it will be how easy it is to get episodes streaming from websites and box services. That might be neat, if you could go to thisshow.com and just watch how every many episodes they choose to make. I think this might be good for soaps or crazy long running series. Just stream the backlog.

 

[RoJoHen]

I don't think its up to writers to set their episodes, storylines, and quality out. I think a network or production and budget such much stipulate how many hours and time slots and scheduling things go.

Ideally, those roles would be reversed.

 

[DarthPipes]

I always thought Galactica should have stayed at 13 episodes myself. They were able to tell a much tighter story that way. 20 episodes led to more filler and story details coming apart.

I noticed the story seemed to start spiraling out timeline wise in season two, at episode eleven or so.

Yeah, after the Pegasus storyline this was very noticeable. The first twenty-plus took place in a 2-3 month time span. After this story arc, a lot more time was passing between stories and plot points and continuity were getting out of control.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I don't really care how long a season is, so long as they don't stretch it out needlessly. I'd be happy if each season varied in length for what the showrunners say they needed to tell that seasons story. But it does seem to me like the longer the season the more likely it is to have filler in it.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

While in theory the whole "as many as they can do well" thing sounds good I've found in practice that 13 episodes seems to be a good number. In general, there seems to be less filler/duds yet it's not so short as to leave you feeling starving for more.

 

[KB24]

I wish the time, money, and studio didn't have all the power, but also the stretching of the number is a pain in the butt I agree!

While it's convenient I imagine to film seasons back to back or such, I think it's just a ratings or marketing ploy to jerk the audience around, some times up to several years like with Nip/Tuck and The Sopranos. So again, it's not the number and whether the content is worthwhile, but how much the powers can be can milk it for all its worth. So sad.

I like 13 as a number, but sometimes I think it's not enough, either. That's why I said maybe 13 could have an opening or closing two parter with it, allowing maybe 15 or 16 episodes.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but is the length of an episode a factor for some? I miss longer episodes. Although only premium channels sans commercials can really have longer running times. 10 eps of 55 minutes has just as much content as 13 45 minute shows.

I wish Harry Potter had been a tv show. Imagine a book a season of 20 eps. Then there would have been plenty of time to delve into all the mysteries and hints that get left in the movies-and there would have been less devotion to ooo and aahhh effects.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

Episode runtime can be a factor to, but not necessarily in how many episodes you have, but what can and cannot be within an episode. This is most evident in the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica and Caprica and interviews for Dollhouse suggest season one was pretty good in the eyes of the producers, because they had longer run time then season two did.

I still say, that it depends on the story, Babylon 5 did pretty good doing 22 episode seasons, with each episode ultimately feeding a tiny bit into the overall arc in some sort of fashion (I think there's posts somewhere that said there's only an extreme few episodes that are actually worthless stand alones).

So again, it depends on the story and how many episodes you can tell the story and still keep things going to attract new viewers and keep the current ones.

For instance, I am of the opinion that season two of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles would have been better off at thirteen episodes and not a back nine of extra episodes (making 22 for the season) after production had started. The studio seemed to like it enough for an extra back nine, then canceled it, I'd have rathered gotten a third season, but whatever.

The point is, as I've said before, it's all on the story, and what you can do with a certain number. Angel was good with 20-odd episode seasons, but as much as I love it, Dollhouse was probably better off with 13 episode seasons.