History Main / InconsistentEpisodeLengths

* ''WebAnimation/SpookyMonth'': The original "It's spooky month" was around a minute forty in length and solely focused on Skid and Pump doing various spooky things in the short time frame. "The Stars", "Unwanted Guest", and "Deadly Smiles" are a little over six, ten, and twenty one minutes, respectively, and feature actual plots woven in with Skid and Pump's shenanigans and even a few perspective switches.* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Episodes generally only cover one event or plot, lasting from 4 minutes to 28 minutes as needed. Episodes became longer as the show went on, with Volumes 3 to 6 being roughly 15 to 20 minutes, and starting Volume 7, episode lengths were more tighter in the 17-20 minute range, with finales being a few minutes longer than usual.

* ''WebAnimation/SpookyMonth'': The original "It's spooky month" was around a minute forty in length and solely focused on Skid and Pump doing various spooky things in the short time frame. "The Stars" and "Unwanted Guest" are a little over six and ten minutes, respectively, and feature actual plots woven in with Skid and Pump's shenanigans and even a few perspective switches.
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Episodes generally only cover one event or plot, lasting from 4 minutes to 28 minutes as needed. Episodes became longer as the show went on, with Volumes 3 to 6 being roughly 15 to 20 minutes, and starting Volume 7, episode lengths were more tighter in the 17-20 minute range, with finales being a few minutes longer than usual.

* ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'' episodes have gotten longer with age. Older episodes are usually about 10-30 minutes long, but post-cancellation usually episodes range from 20 minutes to a half-hour. Editorials tend to be shorter than that, but clipless episodes and other intensive reviews can go as long as 45 minutes or even an hour at the latest. Compare Critic's old review of the Nicktoons and SNICK blocks, which are about 15-20 minutes, and the modern reviews of the Fox Kids and Toonami blocks, which fall within 45-60 minutes.

Note that for series, the length either needs to be inconsistent across the board (e.g. ''Series/BlackMirror'') or each season follows a different format (e.g. ''Series/{{Special}}'') - series with several seasons that have the first/last season follow a different format would be EarlyInstalmentWeirdness or LaterInstalmentWeirdness.

A common trait of WebVideoSeries, as those are usually independently made and thus under less/no constraints.

In traditional media, stories published on a regular basis tend to have a very consistent length- TV series are usually 22 or 44 minutes, comic books are 32 pages, newspaper comics have a certain number of panels, etc. At most, TV shows may gain an extra minute or two by shortening the credits or skipping the theme tune. If an episode is too short, it can be expanded with a [[TwoLinesNoWaiting B plot]], too long, it's shortened or [[MultiPartEpisode cut into two]]. This is naturally due to the limitations of the media it's published in-- a series being broadcast or physically printed can't go over into the space meant for other works. For other media, a consistent amount of content is expected if the audience is paying the same price each month.

However, with the advent of direct streaming and internet publication, each issue or episode can easily be a different length without much inconvenience. Much more common in New Media such as WebVideo series - non traditional content creators are much less likely to stick to fixed lengths when tackling a subject, instead taking as much or little time as they think the subject needs or deserves. Some bigger productions have been slower to catch on than others, but it's increasingly common to see series with variable episode lengths from mainstream creators.

Varying installment lengths have always been standard for series which are published as a series of individual works, such as most book or theatrical film series, although this trope could still apply if the differences are unusually significant (such as a 100 page book and a 500 page book in the same series).

Compare ExtraLongEpisode (a one-time format break) and IrregularSeries (published on an irregular basis). Some regular-length shows may have special short episodes or omake published online as well- see BonusMaterial. See InfiniteCanvas for a similar concept with comics.

!Examples

[[AC:Anime & Manga]]

[[AC:Comic Strips]]

[[AC:Fan Works]]

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]

[[AC:Podcasts]]

[[AC:Video Games]]

[[AC:Webcomics]]

[[AC:Web Animation]]
* Every episode of ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'' is longer than the one that came before it, and may be accompanied by multiple acts, usually including a POV shift; this culminates in a 5-act finale that takes up 1.5 hours of the series' 10 hour runtime.

[[AC:Web Videos]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Due in part to being such a LongRunner, the standard episode length has changed several times. Depending on the season, the standard length could be 25, 45, or 50 minutes. Beyond this, there are several episodes which deviate from the "standard", ranging from as short as 18 minutes to as long as 90 minutes. Additionally, the classic era grouped episodes into multi-part serials, with each serial ranging from 2 to 12 episodes, although 4 and 6 episode serials were the most common. The shortest full story is only 25 minutes, while the longest is nearly 5 hours.

Note that for series, the length either needs to be inconsistent across the board (e.g. ''Series/BlackMirror'') or a two-season series has one season follow one format and the other follow another (e.g. ''Series/{{Special}}'') - series with more seasons that have the first/last season follow a different format would be EarlyInstalmentWeirdness or LaterInstalmentWeirdness.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Due in part to being such a LongRunner, the standard episode length has changed several times. Depending on the season, the standard length could be 25, 45, or 50 minutes. Beyond this, there are several episodes which deviate from the "standard", ranging from as short as 18 minutes to as long as 90 minutes. Additionally, the classic era grouped episodes into multi-part serials, with each serial ranging from 2 to 12 episodes, although 4 and 6 episode serials were the most common.

* The running time of most ''Series/GameOfThrones'' episodes are usually 50 minutes. The season finales tend to be much longer with 60 minutes. But after the seventh and eigth seasons were shorten to 8 and 6 episodes respectively, the length varies from 60 to 80 minutes with Season 8's "The Long Night" being the longest episode in the entire series.

* ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners'' anime is a series of 7 movies - 8 with the bonus film - narrating a continuous story and ranging in length from 45 minutes (episode 4) to 2 hours (episode 7). This mainly has to do with their source material, a LightNovel whose chapters varied wildly in their word count.
* This could be quite common in [[OriginalVideoAnimation OAVs]]. The original [=OAVs=] of ''[[Anime/ElHazardTheMagnificentWorld El-Hazard]]'' had episodes 2-6 (of 7) of roughly comparable length to an standard length TV series but both the first and last episodes were double length. And that's a relatively tame example compared to some others.

* When ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' started out, the Sunday strips had to follow a standard layout that allowed individual newspapers to rearrange the panels to fit either a full page, half a page or a quarter of a page. Cartoonist Bill Watterson found this format restricting, and after his sabbatical he negotiated to have a freeform Sunday layout. These new strips had as many or as few panels as was required for whatever story Watterson wanted to draw, anywhere from twenty small square panels to one SplashPage taking up the entire page and anything in between. {{Downplayed|Trope}}, as they still had to fit in the same amount of physical space each week.

* Almost ''all'' the episodes of the original ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'' [[OriginalVideoAnimation OAVs]]were of completely different lengths, ranging from 26 minutes (Episode 3) to 52 minutes (episode 8) with only episodes 6 & 7 having the same run time (49 minutes each).

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_20211003_233421_netflix2.jpg]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Episodes generally only cover one event or plot, lasting from 4 minutes to 28 minutes as needed. Episodes became longer as the show went on, with Volumes 3 to 6 being roughly 15 to 20 minutes, and starting Volume 7, episode lengths were more tighter in the 17-20 minute range (of course, with finales being a few minutes longer than usual).

* ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': As an AnimatedAnthology series, episodes range from 10 to 20 minutes long and are mostly [[AnimatedAdaptation adaptations]] of short stories by various writers.

* ''Series/WandaVision'': The episodes range from around 20 minutes to around 40 minutes-- the shorter episodes are styled as a faux half-hour sitcom, while the more dramatic later episodes are longer.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Episodes generally only cover one event or plot, lasting from 4 minutes to 28 minutes as needed.

* Every episode of ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'' is longer than the one that came before it and may be accompanied by multiple acts, usually including a POV shift; this culminates in a 5-act finale that takes up 1.5 hours of the series' 10 hour runtime.

Index: {{Formats}}

* The ''LightNovel/KaraNoKyoukai'' anime is a series of 7 movies (8 with the bonus film) narrating a continuous story and ranging in length from 45 minutes (episode 4) to 2 hours (episode 7). This mainly has to do with their source material, a LightNovel whose chapters varied wildly in their word count.

* When ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' started out, the Sunday strips had to follow a standard layout that allowed individual newspapers to rearrange the panels to fit either a full page, half a page or a quarter of a page. Cartoonist Bill Watterson found this format restricting, and after his sabbatical he negotiated to have a freeform Sunday layout. These new strips had as many or as few panels as was required for whatever story Watterson wanted to draw, anywhere from twenty small square panels to one SplashPage taking up the entire page and anything in between. {{Downplayed}}, as they still had to fit in the same amount of physical space each week.

* ''Series/{{Maniac 2018}}'': The mini-series is split into ten chapters,with episodes of varying lengths; the longest runs to forty-four minutes, and the shortest just twenty-three. The show's creator explained that he liked the idea of the velocity of shorter episodes with the potential of longer ones if needed.

* The ''Series/UltramanMebius'' spin-off, a 3-episode miniseries titled ''Series/UltramanMebiusGaiden'', have all three of its episodes having different runtimes. The first episode, a prequel titled ''Hikari Saga'', consists of three 15-minute segments chronicling a part of Ultraman Hikari's journey, which is followed by ''Armoured Darkness'', a 27-minute episode taking place AFTER the series, before concluding with a third and final episode set years later, ''Ghost Rebirth'', a 50-minute finale.
* ''Series/WandaVision'': The episodes range from around 20 minutes to around 40 minutes- most of the earlier episodes are shorter- styled as a faux half-hour sitcom, while the more dramatic later episodes are longer.

* ''Podcast/TheMagnusArchives'': each standard episode includes a short prose story in the form of a "statement", typically about some luckless person who has a brush with the supernatural. Most episodes also include a "main plot" segment, being the story of the archivists and their ongoing investigations into the statements. The episodes generally last 20-25 minutes, but can be as short as 16 or as long as 36, mostly depending on how much plot there is.

* Every episode of ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'' is longer than the one that came before it and may be accompanied by multiple acts, usually including a POV shift. This culminates in a 5-act finale that takes up 1.5 hours of the series' 10 hour runtime.

* ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': An AnimatedAnthology series, episodes range from 10 to 20 minutes long and are mostly [[AnimatedAdaptation adaptations]] of short stories by various writers.