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Opinion: Small screen, big investment: TV episodes have become way too long
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Television
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The traditional HBO model of being approximately 30 minutes or 60 minutes, more or less, was reasonable. Some episodes were long (Sopranos Season 4 finale was 75 minutes long, about 25% longer than its time slot), and some were short (Sopranos season 2, episode 8 was only 43 minutes). But they generally stuck around that time frame, and the majority of the episodes were between 50-60 minutes long.
The Bear's shortest episode was 18 minutes. Most of its episodes are between 30-40 minutes. But it has two monster episodes, season 2's "Fishes" at 66 minutes, and Season 4's "Bears" at 69 minutes. Those ratios are way off, and hard to plan sequential non-binge watching. At a certain point it's disrespectful of the audience's time.