I’m very happy to be living in this era of television. I remember growing up, seasons would be super long, have relatively low production value, and the characters’ emotional journeys would pretty much restart every episode. Now, we live in a time when seasons can range from three to twenty-five episodes, with most streaming TV hovering between eight and thirteen.

But, as has been proven time and again, you can’t please everyone. That’s just impossible. And there are a good number of people who walked away from Netflix’s The Witcher feeling like there could have been more. In a recent AMA on Reddit, showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich discussed why they stuck to eight episodes for the first season.

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“The number of episodes is based on the story we’re telling, our sense of what an audience will watch (and finish), and the budget,” Hissrich wrote. “When you’re starting a show, and don’t know if it will be a success, more episodes generally means that you get to spend less money on every episode. So we knew we didn’t want to do that. Eight felt like the magic number.”

I think that’s fair, especially based on the sheer number of people complaining about the dragon’s VFX (though I’d argue most just have a problem with the design of the dragon and not the money put toward it). Fantasy is an expensive beast, and in today’s world, you have to please audiences with solid-looking VFX.

“We’re approaching S2 in a similar way we did with S1: what are the stories [author Andrzej] Sapkowski was telling, and why?” she continued. “What building blocks do we need to set up future stories? Is there anything we missed from S1 that we want to include? And what will work on television? For instance — no one wants to see Triss have diarrhea for three episodes. So what are we trying to glean from that in the books, and how do we present that onscreen?”

Sounds like pretty standard adaptation fare. I personally enjoyed the first season of The Witcher and liked the fact that it was only eight episodes, as it has encouraged me to revisit it with a second viewing to pick up the stuff in those early episodes I didn’t quite understand.

What do you think of Season 1’s episode length? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Reddit