‘Big Bang’ spinoff keeps episodes short by design
Chuck Lorre says HBO Max’s Stuart Fails To Save the Universe runs lean because longer episodes would have meant padding.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
2 min read
HBO Max’s next trip into the Big Bang Theory orbit is going small on runtime, with Stuart Fails To Save the Universe packing its first season into episodes as short as 15 minutes.
The new spinoff, created by Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady and Zak Penn, has 10 episodes in Season 1, Deadline reported. One runs 15 minutes, four run 18 minutes, and the remaining five come in at 20, 21, 22, 24 and 25 minutes.
That makes the show unusually brisk for a streaming comedy. Deadline noted that streaming sitcoms often land somewhere between 25 and 35 minutes, while old-school broadcast half-hours are usually built to fit roughly 22 minutes of story around commercial breaks.
Lorre says there was no budget panic
The short runtimes are not the result of production trouble, according to Lorre. Asked by Deadline whether the show’s alternate realities, sets and visual effects had squeezed the budget, he pushed back.
“No, no,” Lorre told Deadline. He said the creative team believed each episode had already told its story, and that adding more material would have meant padding.
Lorre, whose long comedy résumé is rooted in broadcast television, said the classic episode length came from the needs of network TV, where ads had to fit into the half-hour slot. Streaming, he told Deadline, removes that requirement.
His view: make the episode as strong as possible and do not stretch it just to satisfy the clock. Lorre said he did not expect viewers to finish an episode wishing it had run several minutes longer, suggesting they would be more likely to decide whether they liked the installment as a whole.
A streaming rhythm for a sci-fi comedy
Stuart Fails To Save the Universe is Lorre’s third single-camera streaming comedy, after Netflix’s Golden Globe-winning The Kominsky Method and HBO Max’s Bookie, Deadline reported.
The new series also uses a weekly cliffhanger-style rhythm. According to Deadline, each episode ends with the main characters arriving in a new alternate reality, setting up the next chapter.
Lorre said that structure worked as both a preview for the following week and a natural way to tell this story. Prady told Deadline the pattern began in the first episode, when the writers wanted a moment that suggested everything had been fixed before revealing it had not. He said the team enjoyed that turn and kept using it.
The show stars Kevin Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, Brian Posehn and John Ross Bowie, according to Deadline’s coverage. It premieres July 23 on HBO Max, with episodes released weekly.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.