But this is not just a
Westworld problem. It started on cable, where a prestige drama on HBO meant a full hour-long runtime rather than the measly 43 minutes granted to an episode on commercial television. The prestige signaling of HBO's "we're not TV" then drifted over to FX, where runtime bloat touched series like
Nip/Tuck and
The Shield, and then became especially noticeable on FX's
Sons of Anarchy. Midway through its run,
Sons began to abjure its supposed hour timeslot and made a habit of moseying into a full 90-minute scheduling block. In talking about the unique scheduling for the series,
a Variety piece pointed directly to the influence — and the prestige and "quality" implications — of longer runtimes on premium cable. Letting an episode of
Sons relax into a 55-minute total length, bulked out to 90 minutes with commercials, "gives [FX] a chance to keep up with the creative scope of HBO and Showtime, which aren't forced to cut into their series with commercial breaks." Longer episodes mean more "creative scope." Longer episodes are how you know something's important.
The problem is now endemic to a whole cohort of muscular, more-important-than-regular-TV TV series. FX's
Legion, ostensibly an hour-long commercial cable show, hits 61 minutes in its season two premiere, and many of its first season episodes topped 50. The same is true for FX's other Noah Hawley drama,
Fargo, and FX's
The Americans is another frequent offender, although I'd argue it's also one of the few shows to really earn its extra time. On USA,
Mr. Robot's season three finale hit 57 minutes. It's the same situation for TNT's
The Alienist and its crime-family drama
Animal Kingdom. And the original premium cable timeslot busters have relaxed even further into the slide toward immensity. There's
Westworld and
Game of Thrones, but even underwhelming entries like
Here and Now tip over the 60 minute mark. The
Vinyl pilot was a full two hours.
That underlying sense that long things are worthier has drifted into streaming television, where it's taken root as a kind of fundamental operating assumption.