Goat3001

It depends on the quality of the show, really. It's definitely more difficult to be a quality show having to pump out 20+ eps a season.

If you're a network show that is asking the viewer to commit to 20+ episodes a season, watch it once a week with a few month long breaks thrown in there then you better be really damn good. To me, there isn't a show that fits that bill. But I do watch Supernatural because my wife loves it.

If I can binge watch then there's more wiggle room for a handful of bad episodes.

GatorDeb

MANIFEST! That's the show's name I couldn't remember.

Noonan

Not if the show is good enough. Sometimes I wish shows had even more episodes per season.

mwbmis

As a commitment...no. But I think most of us would acknowledge that cranking out that many shows in a season is a drain on the creative. It's not long before you run out of ideas and start repeating yourself only in a dumber way.

Nick Danger

I honestly can't watch that many episodes. I bought The Avengers Emma Peel 50-episode set in November. It's May, six months later, and I am still working my way through the set.

Geofferson

Unless I'm not absolutely in love with the show, then yes. Case in point, I haven't been in a big hurry to watch the latest season of This Is Us. watching a few other 8-12 episode shows instead.

JeffTheAlpaca

Maybe I would watch shows like Breaking Bad and the Sopranos if they were made as just one movie since I don't have the time commitment.

cultshock

A coworker recommended Supernatural to me and I was like "How many seasons have been on so far? How many episodes per season?? Fuck, I don't have time for all that!" Maybe when I'm retired.

MeridithHartt

Yes, its too much time. Recently, I am watching a Turkish TV series with Eng subtitle. One episode is more than 1 hour, and after one episode it feels like I have put too much burden on my eyes. Even my eyes were swelling after watching one episode. Now, I decided to watch only a few important scenes to overcome time consumption and eye problems.

PhantomStranger

You really only need to see the first five seasons of Supernatural for the complete story by the original creator and showrunner.

Shannon Nutt

It depends on the series, but generally speaking, most shows seem to run out of steam and are better suited for 10 to 13-episode seasons.

The only problem with 10 to 13-episode seasons (as one of the above posters stated) is that if it's really good, you have to wait a year to see more.

Original Desmond

Shows like FBI, SWAT and Strike back, i could watch every week of the year

They are mostly self contained (strike back less so) and are fun and fast paced

I'm finding 22 episodes of the arrowverse shows a bit of a chore. Some episodes are good, others boring

MLBFan24

PhantomStranger

There was less filler in the Arrowverse's early seasons, before they were 4-5 shows on the air at once and talent was spread too thin. I'd say Arrow's fourth season is when they really started embracing throwaway filler to fill up the episode orders.

morriscroy

I agree. I found the first three seasons of Arrow were very watchable and even rewatchable. I use to watch it live or semi-live.

By the time it was season 4, the quality declined somewhat. I found season 4 too tedious watch, that I didn't even bother buying the season 4 bluray set (nor any subsequent seasons).

RichC2

Lucifer just took the jump from 18 - 26 eps down to 10 and was noticeably stronger for it (it's rare for a ressurrected season to be a shows strongest but yeah. Definitely the case there.)

morriscroy

(On a tangent).

The only time I ever did something of this magnitude, was watching the entire Stargate franchise season by season on dvd during 2011.

At the time, I watched season 2 of Stargate Universe on a scifi basic cable channel, which kept my interest for reasons I don't quite understand. But at the time I didn't see SG1 or Atlantis previously.

Shortly after Stargate Universe went of the air in 2011, I found all the Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis dvd sets for around $10 a pop which I picked up on impulse. I had some time off from work during that summer, which I binge watched through all these SG1/Atlantis dvd sets and the SGU season 1 bluray set.

In hindsight, the only reason I bothered to watch through all these 15+ dvd sets, was that I didn't have many dvds/blurays at the time. (I only started buying a lot of dvds in mid-2011. Prior to 2011, I had very little to no interest in dvd/bluray).

DJariya

Well, part of the reason for this is that Netflix doesn't pay for more than 10 episodes for content produced by an outside studio. They did the same thing with Longmire, also produced by WB.

It would be really expensive to produce 22 episodes of Lucifer.

RichC2

Longmire only had one season with more than 10 episodes (season 2, one of the 3 on A&E. It had 13.) but yeah you're right -- it was still surprisingly strong - if brief - season.

(I like the shorter ones but don't trust Netflix to give us proper closure these days.)

Even when Netflix orders a full 20+ ep season, they split it into two seasons due to their binge model, ie Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

mndtrp

Maybe the question doesn't apply to me, as I only stream shows that come in full seasons, and generally after there are several seasons already available. As long as the content remains engaging, I don't really care how many episodes there are. I'll watch one a night or so for as long as it takes. If I get bored with the show, or end up actively disliking it, I'll quit and move on, rarely coming back. I have found that I tend to look back more fondly on seasons that have around 10-13 episodes.

ctyankee

The only hour-long dramas I watch at the moment are on Netflix or Cable. Quality stuff. That doesn't mean that networks can't do quality stuff, just that they have a lot of time to fill up the nightly schedule and it takes two comedies to fill that void. Obviously, they go to cheap shows to shoot and develop like game shows and reality TV shows like Survivor and the like, but how many will of those will viewers actually watch?

Netflix doesn't have that problem of filling the void with content only providing quality content. That's why Netflix's stock is rising while network viewers are slowly dying out.

DJLinus

I never got on the Lost train, but over the years have been curious about watching the show. Then I see the time investment - knowing a good chunk of the episodes will be filer and wheel spinning - and I adopt your thinking. (The terrible buzz about the finale doesn't help.) Cable, streaming, and the British TV model have ruined me for how many episodes I think a season should be.

B5Erik

I'm rewatching Castle myself. 4th time through, and I still love it.

My family just watches an episode every night while eating dinner. Easy.

B5Erik

Every time we get to the end of a new season of Better Call Saul I don't want it to end. Same with The Orville.

I was glad to get full seasons of Babylon 5, and even then I didn't want them to end.

I want full 22 episode seasons.

PhantomStranger

Season four was trash, but make sure to catch season five with Prometheus and Adrian Chase. A lot of people consider season five the second-best Arrow season.