There's been a lot of talk lately about why seasons of TV seem to be getting shorter. Back in the day, it was common for network shows to run 22 episodes per year. Prestige shows like Game of Thrones cut that number down to 10, but it was worth it considering how much higher the quality was. The Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon now produces eight episodes per season, and we have to wait well over a year to see them.
So seasons of TV are getting shorter while wait times are getting longer. It's annoying. The reasons why differ from show to show. In the case of House of the Dragon, it sounds like HBO forced the producers to cut the seasons down. Another huge HBO drama is The Last of Us, which is returning for its second season this April. The first season of that show, based on the video game series of the same name, had nine episodes. Season 2 will have seven.
In this case, it sounds like the reduced episode count is truly the result of producers Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann thinking it's what's best for the story, which follows survivors Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) as they try to make lives amidst the zombie apocalypse. “The story material that we got from [the video game The Last of Us Part II] is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons,” Mazin told Deadline. “When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.”
"We just want to put people’s minds at ease that the idea that this season coming up is a little bit shorter than the first one is not because we’re taking less time to tell the stories, it’s because we want to take more time. The story that we’re telling is much bigger than the story of Season 1, there’s just a lot more going on, it’s a lot harder to produce but we want every episode to feel like its own blockbuster to be honest with you."
This second season will not adapt the whole of the second game. There's already a third season in development, and possibly a fourth. “We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we’re taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too,” Mazin said. “We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that — as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television — Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4.”
So yes, the second season will be shorter than the first, but I like what we're hearing about the third being "significantly larger." And there's already news that filming on the third season will begin very soon after the second season wraps up, which means that we won't be waiting as long for season 3 as we did for season 2. That will likely also be true of a potential fourth season; after the success of season 1, Mazin and Druckmann have been able to plan ahead, which means they can keep wait times to a minimum.
“Our process was, we sketched out multiple seasons, then we did a deep dive on Season 2,” Druckmann said. “To echo what Craig is saying, there is no padding, everything that is in there is intentional. There is always a goal in mind that we’re heading towards, we are never meandering the sake of meandering, it’s always to say something greater for these characters and the themes.”
"And certainly in Season 2, there’s an episode that is going to be again closer to — I don’t know if I would say feature length but quite big," Mazin added. "I like generally hitting about an hour, it’s a great length, I love working in that format. What we don’t want to do is, say a season of seven episodes where each episode is 90 minutes; part of why we’re doing seven episodes is finding that nice line."
All of this sounds genuine to me. In the case of The Last of Us, I think these really are carefully picking and choosing how many episodes each season should have according to the demands of the story, rather than because of corporate edict. And I think if the episodes turn out as well as they're promising, fans will go along with it, even if we want more.
The Last of Us TV show won't go beyond the events of Part II
If you're wondering, the next two (and possibly three) seasons of The Last of Us will cover the second game and the second game only, with expansions here and there. It's long been rumored that developer Naughty Dog is working on a third Last of Us game, but Druckmann and Mazin intend to limit the show to the source material that's already out. And considering how meaty the second game is, that may be enough...for now.
“I don’t see a world where we go through and we go, that’s shorter than we thought,” Mazin said. “We are committed to delivering people great seasons and arcs, and HBO was amazing about this. They let us pick that natural spot. Instead of us having to figure out how to create seasons around an artificial number, we create the length of the seasons around the story and how we are telling it.”
We don't have an exact release date for The Last of Us season 2 nailed down, but we're putting bets on the premiere airing on HBO and Max on Sunday, April 13. I expect it be a compelling season of TV, reduced episode count or no. "I couldn’t be happier or more excited,” Mazin said about what's coming. “The scope of this thing is at times absolutely massive. And Season 3 promises to be just as big if not bigger.”
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