Just wondering whether all britcoms have 6 episodes. I recently watch "The Office" s1 & 2. I love the show but was a bit dissapointed that each season had only 6 episodes. I guess I am use to the 20+ episodes/season we get here.

Many Brit shows only have 6 episodes, but not all of them. For instance, Fawlty Towers and the Young Ones each only had 6 episodes per "season", but shows like Keeping up Appearances and As Time Goes By were a little more varied.

However, I can't think of any Brit show that has close to the 20+ episodes per season that American shows do.

They believe in the adage quality > quantity.

Except, I don't think its necessarily true -- There are several American shows which managed to have consistently good episodes even with 20+ of them per season.

with 6 episodes per season, how many "seasons" are there per year?

One.

so they show 6 episodes in 2004 and then 6 in 2005??? that doesn't sound right... it must kill momentum of popular shows

i.e Arrested Development, Scrubs, Friends (Earlier Seasons), Seinfeld, and the list goes on..............


That's exactly what I was thinking!

There are more than you'd think, but they're usually not sitcoms. In fact, I can't think of any, but I can think of several dramas: Casualty, Heartbeat, The Bill... and I can see Spooks going that way. Normally if a show is successful the number of episodes is increased per series.

The British don't have the same television season structure that America does, though. New shows can come on at any time. Normally there's about a year between series of popular shows, and they're promoted heavily. It helps that cable never made inroads into the British tv market, and satellite is still fairly uncommon. Most people only get 5 channels (they might get more with Freeview, but that's something else altogether and hardly any of those channels get much viewership).

but it is fair to say that 6 episodes of a show may be shown in 1 calendar year?

Yes.

For instance:

Coupling S1 premiered 12-May-2000, S2 - 03-Sep-2001 (9 episodes), S3 - 23-Sep-2002 (7 episodes), S4 - 10-May-2004.

interesting... never knew that before

I've always thought that the HBO mold of 13 eps/ a season was just about right.

20-24 is just too many and shows get stale faster.

Even Seinfeld got old at the end. Look at X-Files. Homicide: Life on the Street was a great show that ran out of steam towards the end.

If Arrested Development is on for 7-8 years it too will probably suck.

I think that if a show has 20-24 eps. a year it should have a 5 year maximum.

I hate to see shows I love wither away as they run out of fresh ideas.

My $.02.

Well, I do know that UK shows had a HUGE run-time many years ago. Doctor Who had like 40 episodes a season way back in the 60's - and I think that was pretty standard for the time.

On the other hand, the season currently in production right now has 13 hour long episodes (as opposed to the 26 half hour episodes in the 70's and 80s), and it's considered VERY unusual for UK tv.

I think some American shows would benefit from the 6 episodes per season. Smallville, for example, would benefit greatly, as there is just too much excess in the series that could be cut out and they could focus more on the story arcs rather than FOTWs. At the very most 13 episodes a season.

I think it forces the series creators to only use the best of their best material, and in most cases, I think this leads to highly creative TV. I also believe this is a reason that Brit coms are often seen as superior in quality whereas if they get remade over here as Americanized series, they often loose the creative edge the British counterparts had. I mean, take Office for example. It's sheer brilliance in the few episodes we got, but if America had green lighted the series, it would have run for 24 episodes a season and more than likely lost that edge and become boring and dull.

And while there are examples of shows in America that have great episode after episode that ran for more than a few years, most of them lost their edge after those few years, didn't they? I think a show like Arrested Development rivals the quality of British TV, but seriously, I can't see that series being as great after three years, four years tops. It has a story line it's following and there has to come a point where they resolve the story line and end the series.

Yeah, but after only one season it has more great episodes than britcoms have after 3 years!

and more stupid ones. While AD has some great material, they also had some crappy filler episodes as well. "Marta Complex" comes to mind.

Why does the number of episodes matter? If it's good, it's good... and more episodes wouldn't necessarily be of the same quality. Most British sitcoms are one or two person affairs (without a writing staff, etc) and they almost always decide to call it quits after one or two series. Even a very long-running series like As Time Goes By was down to four episodes per series towards the end of its run.

Actually, only series/season 9 (last one) had that few.

I should have known that. It's one of my favorite shows.

I think my point stands, though. If you look at the show as a whole, the number of episodes per series kept dropping after series 4.

Perhaps..... Perhaps.... Perhaps.

Another thing is the BBC does not typically have the huge writing staffs that American series' do. This leads to more consistent, if not always better results. For instance, on Coupling Steven Moffat writes all of the episodes. On Seinfeld, there were dozens of writers collaborating on several episodes each in a season.

Also, the shows are shown in their entire run more than once. So they may air Coupling 21 times in a year, but it's episodes 1 through 7 three times over. And as someone else pointed out, as one series ends, another one is often starting.

But it is disconcerting if you are used to the American broadcast style. I believe "The Sopranos" fans understand what it is like.

And it's also what makes the BBC series' ideal for the DVD format. An entire season fits on a 2-disc release, and you can get it all at once, watch them all without growing tired of it, and then wait a year for the next one. The wife and I watched the entire series 3 of "Coupling" in one sitting without losing interest fo a second. It was like a longish movie, but with no lulls.

I just can't see The Office, in particular, going through a 20+ episode run. What can you really go with in an office for 20+ times? I'm sure Gervais and Merchant could do it if they wanted and keep it consistently funny, but...

I love the show and will treasure it always, but I much like the 6 episodes in a series and the thoughts of leaving me wanting more (hence remembering it forever).

Can't wait for the 16th to watch the three dvd sets all over again together.

Sometimes over here we get a good/VERY bad thing working here for our sitcoms.Speaking from personal experience the britcoms I like are for 6 episodes and the ones I hate get 12 episodes, the one recent exception was Green wing. This was very different was that for its debut season was 10 shows and each show was 1 hour long. This is very rare and was a very funny series (sort of a more surreal and swearing version of scrubs, if that is possible).
There has been a history of US/UK sitcoms "borrowing" ideas from each other. But when we copy yours, and when I have heard that joke come out of US mouths I cringe because it sounded so much better in a Yank accent.