Every Monday night, I watch the latest episode of “How I Met Your Mother,” even though the show hasn’t been consistently funny in years. It might sound absurd that I spend so much time watching something I don’t even fully enjoy anymore, but I’ve committed enough time to it that I want to see how these characters end up. And what’s even more absurd is that it took the show nine seasons to finally live up to its title and introduce the mother.
While television offers a chance to tell stories that are too long for movies, not every story needs 100 episodes. In order to extend the show, filler plots that are often unnecessary for the overall narrative are used.
On “HIMYM,” for example, the debacle this season was the choice to send Marshall on a road trip to separate him from the rest of the cast and push back his argument with Lily. “Lost” infamously based an entire episode on the explanation of Jack’s tattoos, a clarification that no one had been asking for. Some shows even extend long enough that they need to change their initial premises to tell an ongoing story. “Homeland,” for example, has changed from a thriller depicting the return of a prisoner of war with questionable motives to a more stereotypical government show where the main character’s job with the CIA becomes more implausible with every episode. “Revenge,” a fun show with interesting twists and turns in its first season, was forced to explore the idea of company conspiracies to stall on its main plot; the result was a decrease in both quality and viewership.
Luckily, shows are starting to experiment more with season lengths. The major benefit of this change is the ability to tell stories with a tighter narrative. Fox's new hit “Sleepy Hollow” will only have 13 episodes, allowing the network to condense its crazy plotting over fewer episodes and have a higher ratio of mythology episodes to monster–of–the–week episodes. Even cable channels have begun to experiment with the reemergence of anthology shows. Creators are able to tell interesting stories that fit within a single season without worrying about a long–term plan. The writers of “American Horror Story” are able to do whatever crazy stuff they can think of to their characters each season, and then introduce another fun concept the next year. HBO has the promising “True Detective” on the way, with plans to explore a different case every year with different casts.
While some shows would benefit from shorter seasons, the television business model doesn’t need to be demolished. The standard 22–episode seasons still work very well for a majority of comedies and procedural crime shows. They don’t need to completely change; they just need to tinker and experiment a little. But it’s a good sign that they’re slowly learning that not every show needs the same number of episodes. The optimal number of episodes for a show is the number needed to tell the story the creators wish to tell.
I will watch “How I Met Your Mother” until the bitter end, but I hope it’s the last show to hold me hostage while I wait to see how it finally ends. From now on, I’d much prefer shows to be short and sweet.
