Shows Are Too Long. (I Am Not A Crackpot.)

Plus: Ready Or Not, a funny lunar essay and This Way Up by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when Spider-Man’s place in the world was [thrown into chaos](. It was the week when hopes of getting away from politics — even a little, just sometimes — were dashed, and [people were not happy](. And it was the week when someone who is famous for being not entirely real and not a housewife [broke hearts by leaving]( the Real Housewives franchise. Let's get to it. Opening Argument It used to be, back when swirling matter was still in the process of forming itself into places like Cincinnati, that shows were standardized at 22ish episodes a season. They ran from sometime in September to sometime in May, with breaks and reruns. And most of them were either endlessly looping soaps, like Dynasty, or episodic shows like Cheers that just told a new story every week. Jump ahead to cable, and we went to the 13-episode season. Jump even farther ahead, and we started to get even shorter ones — ones like the seasons (or “series”) common in the U.K. that were maybe only six or eight episodes. The idea of knocking out something called a “season” in one morning used to be a joke, but now it’s a reality. And sometimes, they’re neither soapy nor episodic; they’re the telling of a particular story, at least at the beginning. This is what we used to know as the “limited series,” a term that’s been rendered largely meaningless by the fact that in the great majority of cases, another season will follow, no matter how “limited” the first season seemed to be. (See: Big Little Lies, The Handmaid’s Tale.) And this has made me very, very sensitive to the feeling that most limited series are too long. [a scene from The Handmaid's Tale, another show with length issues] George Kraychyk/Hulu Sometimes, this refers to episode length: I found almost six of the episodes HBO made available of [its new show]( The Righteous Gemstones to be too long. The pilot is basically double-length, and it’s much too long. In this sense, when I say “too long,” I mean that the episode seems poorly formed, usually in that it’s slumping in the middle. When the idea of The Hour and The Half-Hour were remade from their commercials-containing standards of 22-ish and 42-ish minutes when cable TV removed the ads — and especially when streaming came along and made it essentially frictionless to release shows with episodes of genuinely whatever length you want — it became the responsibility of creators to control episode length. And they don’t always do it. But sometimes, it refers to series length. One example: I’ll have a fuller review of Showtime’s solid On Becoming a God in Central Florida on Monday. But the first season of the show, starring Kirsten Dunst as a woman who gets tangled up in a multi-level marketing company that functions like a cult, is 10 episodes and cries out to be fewer. Very often, now-standard series lengths like 10 or 13 episodes wind up missing the mark that is “longer than a movie, but shorter than a traditional season.” There was some good material in this season of The Handmaid’s Tale, but not enough for all the episodes that got made. I am entirely convinced this is part of what made Fleabag (six episodes per season) so beloved. Phoebe Waller-Bridge knew how to get in, tell the story, and get out — leaving more questions about what you’d have loved to see than aggravation over why certain elements were included. It’s certainly one of the charms of Aisling Bea’s This Way Up, which [I reviewed this week](. Both are working in seasons of six half-hours, and it means they never feel cluttered, and they tend not to have long stretches that leave behind the main story in favor of a side trip. We’re all still learning what the future of television (or whatever we’ll call it) is going to look like. But for now, one of the most important creative rules that the best shows are following is a very simple one that predates all these technological and economic shifts: Less is more. We Recommend I’ll have a review of Showtime’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida on Monday, but in the meantime, check out the first two installments on Showtime on Sunday night — or watch both full episodes [in preview on YouTube](. Monday night is the MTV VMA Awards telecast, and Pop Culture Happy Hour will be there with the story, and with an episode the morning after. I can’t tell you whether the Netflix romance Falling Inn Love is any good, because to be honest, I haven’t seen it. But it’s coming at you Thursday, and if Netflix is going to stay in the cozy love stories business, I am generally here for it. Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post is a great writer, and often very funny. But when she’s not funny, she’s still a great writer, as in [this heartbreaking, inventive essay]( about Earth and the moon. What We Did This Week [a scene from 'Ready or Not,' a show which Glen would at least rebrand] Eric Zachanowich/Fox Searchlight [Glen wrote about]( the horror-comedy Ready or Not, which he calls “fast and fun” before suggesting what is, you will have to agree, a better tagline than the one the movie came up with. I [recommended the new series]( This Way Up, now available on Hulu. It might remind you a little bit of Fleabag and other single-woman comedies, but it’s got a lot going for it that’s entirely its own. I also [reviewed the new Danny McBride HBO project]( The Righteous Gemstones, which is essentially what its promotion — and the presence of McBride himself — suggest it will be. I [had some thoughts about]( the running movie Brittany Runs a Marathon, which I wanted to love and couldn’t, quite. It was an otherwise quiet week at Pop Culture Happy Hour, because our beloved producer, Jessica Reedy, broke her ankle and took the week to recuperate at home. She plans to be back with us next week, so you can expect new shows to return. In your feeds from this week, you’ll find our show about Glow from the summer of 2017 and our show about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel from January of last year. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the Friday show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Unfortunately, since we're re-upping some older shows this week (see above), this segment will return next week. What do you think of today's email? 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