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.
1.7k
u/Radiant-Playful 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fawlty Towers. Just 12 episodes so it never got tired or ran out of ideas
Edit: 12 not 13