{"id":555102,"date":"2026-07-17T22:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555102\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T22:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:24:08","slug":"why-episodes-of-big-bang-theory-spinoff-stuart-are-so-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555102\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Episodes Of ‘Big Bang Theory’ Spinoff ‘Stuart’ Are So Short"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLet\u2019s hope the writers and producers of HBO Max\u2019s upcoming Big Bang Theory spinoff Stuart Fails To Save the Universe<\/a> are not paid by the minute for what they have made.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot shackled by broadcast schedules where half-hour comedies need to be exactly 22 minutes to fit into a 30-min slot with time for ads, episodes of streaming comedies typically run between 25 min \u2013 35 min.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot Stuart Fails To Save the Universe. Despite the fact that they do not have time constraints, the show\u2019s creators, Chuck Lorre<\/a>, Bill Prady<\/a> and Zak Penn<\/a>, went in the other direction with episodes that are very short, even by broadcast standards.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf the 10 episodes of Season 1, one is 15-minutes long, four are 18 min with the other five at 20 min, 21 min, 22 min, 24 min and 25 min. Why was that? With the elaborate sets and special effects involved to create the different alternate realities in each episode, did the producers run out of money in the budget?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo, no. We just felt that we\u2019d successfully told the story, and to add would be padding, and padding, generally, is a hammock between important scenes, and why would we do that if there\u2019s no real reason,\u201d Lorre said.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe and Prady have spent most of their careers working in broadcast comedy, creating episodes to fit the 22-min template with breaks for commercials. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe historic length of a show is entirely arbitrary, it comes from network television where a certain amount of advertising has to be sold to pay the way of making this television, but it\u2019s not an element any longer in streaming,\u201d Lorre said. \u201cSo, why not just make the best show we can and hope the audience is entertained and is not looking at their watch, going, \u2018Oh, I need five more minutes. You need to go further with this.\u2019 I don\u2019t think that would happen, that\u2019d be my guess. I would think you either loved the episode or you didn\u2019t, and you weren\u2019t looking at your watch.\u201d (You can watch the video below.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is Lorre\u2019s third single-camera streaming comedy after the Golden Globe-winning The Kominsky Method for Netflix and Bookie for HBO Max. He has adjusted well to the binge-friendly format, with each episode of Stuart Fails To Save the Universe ending with the heroes landing in a new alternate reality to tease what comes next.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe way we structured it, it just fell into our laps, it\u2019s a teaser for the next week but it also felt like a natural way of telling this story,\u201d Lorre said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdded Prady, \u201cWe found it in the first episode where we wanted to go, \u2018Everything\u2019s all right. Oh wait, no, it isn\u2019t.\u2019 And that was fun, so we kept doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStuart Fails to Save the Universe premieres on HBO Max July 23 with episodes released weekly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s hope the writers and producers of HBO Max\u2019s upcoming Big Bang Theory spinoff Stuart Fails To Save…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[183607,11191,93,61,60,150311,43559,282,231943],"class_list":["post-555102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bill-prady","tag-chuck-lorre","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-stuart-fails-to-save-the-universe","tag-the-big-bang-theory","tag-tv","tag-zak-penn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}