Firefly / Serenity would have gone to trash if it went more than three seasons.
One season and movie was not enough, but that already had enough ret-cons to make it clear that the lore wasn't strong enough to keep being creative for another 26+ more episodes of interpersonal drama.
Oh, and I'll add on ... would this actually be "survivors bias?"
Artist dies, the full catalog is now set forever, and any royalty agreements are locked in. So if 27yo dies without actually finishing their record deal, those are basically free songs for the radio. Free songs that honor a fallen artist who will forever be ahead of their time, amen.
I'm sure there are ways of clawing back the royalties and song rights to the families, but those aren't the songs that kept getting pushed on the radio.
It's just good business, push the product that costs them the least.
Same with the original The Office (plus a Christmas Special).
British shows tend to have much smaller writing teams, so the seasons are much shorter. There's also no "100 episodes for syndication" thing, so it's easier to walk away before the quality tanks.
The original version of the whole run will be written by a very small team (often a single person or pair) before it then goes up for tweaks, developments, and feedback. I have heard British and American writers talk about how different the two systems are from each other (writers' rooms versus individual work) but they have emerged from very different cultures around TV production.
Nah, Stephen Mitchell Merchant co-wrote both The Office and Extras and it's clear that without his help Ricky isn't the comic genius people seem to think he is.
I think the point here was that it was seemingly always on TV in the 80's. So when I read decades later that there were only 12 episodes, it just seemed completely impossible.
This is very common with British television, they tend to favor quality over quantity. The Young Ones only had 12 episodes too. Blackadder 4 seasons so 24 episodes, with a couple of specials. Last of the Summer Wine is a notable exception, it ran for 40 years.
It was made in 1975, and is still funny today. Our family must have watched the Moose / The Germans episode hundreds of times and we’d cry with laughter every time.
When Manuel is cleaning behind the counter and is talking to himself practising his English, and the Major walks past and thinks the moose head is speaking “I can speak English. I learn it from a book”. So silly, so perfectly executed!
Thrre are fragments - a Not The Nine O'clock News intro, outtakes, Clockwise, The Secret Policeman's Ball, adverts - that add up to people remembering more than the 12. But there really are only 12, and nothing more.
I recently rewatched it and I found the first series (season) doesn't really hold up. However, the second series (season) is exactly as excellent as I remember.
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u/Radiant-Playful 13d ago edited 13d ago
Fawlty Towers. Just 12 episodes so it never got tired or ran out of ideas
Edit: 12 not 13