History Main / BritishBrevity

* ''The [[Creator/AmazonStudios]]'s adaptation of the Second Age, ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' is planned to have 5 seasons in total, each run being made of 8 episodes only.

* ''The [[AmazonStudios]]'s adaptation of the Second Age, ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' is planned to have 5 seasons in total, each run being made of 8 episodes only.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' -- Though mitigated by being a LongRunner (currently 300+ episodes), most early seasons consisted of roughly 14 episodes, with later ones dialled down further back to 10 episodes.

** ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'' -- The eighth season has 13 episodes, partly because of ExecutiveMeddling and partly because of the 2007-08 WGA strike.

* BBC flagship show ''Series/DoctorWho''. The classic run from 1963 to 1989 ran for total of 695 episodes - 696 if you want to include the 1996 TV movie as the last proper episode of the classic run; season length depended on the Doctor and the show's popularity - during the First and Second Doctor era, seasons were on average roughly 40 episodes long. Beginning with the Third Doctor, seasons were roughly 25 episodes long. When the show's popularity took a nose dive around the Sixth Doctor, seasons were cut to around 14 episodes. The Revival, which began in 2005, usually runs between 10 and 13 episodes per season, not counting the yearly Christmas special.
** Technically, though, the episode count can be considered artificially-inflated if one takes each story as its own without consideration for episodes/parts, especially if a part was padded (i.e. with corridor-running) to fill out the weekly runtime. (i.e. A four-part story is one episode, another one, maybe 5-6 parts, is another, even the ten-part "The War Games" can be one.)

* ''WesternAnimation/TheWombles'' and ''{{WesternAnimation/Paddington}}'' were rare stop-motion aversions of their time. Not only were they both renewed for a second season but totalled to a healthy 60 and 56 episodes respectively, along with a handful of specials each. ''The Wombles'' even got a nineties revival which similarly consisted of 56 episodes through multiple seasons.

** We should point out that while the episode count shrank with the '05 run over vintage Who, the episode run time jumped from 25-ish minutes to 50, so it balanced out.

* Aardman's first ongoing animated series ''[[WesternAnimation/Morph The Amazing Adventures Of Morph]]'' did relatively better with a series of 26 five minute shorts. It's 2020 revival series, ''The Epic Adventures of Morph'' currently consists of 15 shorts. Granted this isn't counting the endless minute long skits from ''Take Hart'', ''Smart'' and Aardman's Youtube channel to rank up.

* Aardman's first ongoing animated series ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingAdventuresOfMorph'' did relatively better with a series of 26 shorts. ''WesternAnimation/RexTheRunt'' fared the same spread through two 13-episode seasons (not counting several pilots).

* A few British children's TV shows (particularly fairly [[LongRunner long runners]]) may be an inversion of this trope since they want longer series to keep children entertained. BBC kids' series GrangeHill aired 601 episodes over 31 years, and Series/BykerGrove consisted of 344 episodes over 18 years (both having 20 episodes per year with short early seasons). Meanwhile, ITV's Children'sWard clocked up an impressive 143 episodes over 11 years (13 eps per year) for its' run.

-->-- '''Creator/{{PBS}} Guy''', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', "Missionary Impossible"

* While ''Radio/ImSorryIHaventAClue'' doesn't fit this trope ([[LongRunners currently in its 57th series]]), its SpinOff, ''The Doings Of Radio/HamishAndDougal'', definitely fits. There are three series of six episodes each (except the first, which has four) and two specials – which is made even worse by the fact that all the regular episodes are ''fifteen minutes long''. One can get through the show's entire run in five hours.

* On ''Series/{{Community}}'', the ShowWithinAShow ''[[Series/DowntonAbbey Cougarton Abbey]]'' (the fictional TransAtlanticEquivalent of ''Series/CougarTown'') ran for only six episodes before [[KillEmAll having all the characters kill themselves]]. Then [[JustForFun/InspectorSpacetime inverted with]] an AffectionateParody of ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* ''Series/DerryGirls'' lasted for three series with six episodes each. In total, that amounts to eighteen episodes.

* ''Series/GhostsUK'': 3 series of 6 episodes each plus two Christmas Specials, leading to a total of 20 episodes as of this time of writing.

* In heavy contrast to the blatant brevity of ''Wallace and Gromit'', it's spin off ''WesternAnimation/ShaunTheSheep'' has so far ranked up six seasons ranging anywhere from 20 to 40 episodes each, similarly having over 150 episodes in total. This is not counting movies, specials and other shorts made.

* ''Series/TopGear'' tends to vary. Various series range from six episodes to eleven. However, two series are produced a year: a summer and a winter one.

* Appropriately enough for a Canadian show, the ''Franchise/{{Degrassi}}'' franchise started out this way and has moved away from it over time, with 26 episodes of the original ''Series/TheKidsOfDegrassiStreet'' made between 1979-1986 (with a progression from one a year to four a year to an actual series within that), and [[Series/{{Degrassi}} The Revival]] having 48 episodes in the current (10th) season alone.

* ''Episodes'', the joint production between the BBC and America, had a comment about how the show that was being remade in America required a lot more episodes than the 24 made in Britain.

* ''{{Series/Liar}}'': It ran for two seasons with only six episodes each.

* ''Series/{{Ghosts}}'': 3 series of 6 episodes each plus two Christmas Specials, leading to a total of 20 episodes as of this time of writing.