How many episodes are there in a TV series season? Does it matter or is there a specific number that you need to have to make a season?

Sean

I doubt there is, because Lost had 24 episodes, and Grey's Anatomy had 9. It would be my best guess that it doesn't really matter at all.

Okay thanks Sawyer. I've been thinking about making my own little series, but if I do want to, I'm try to plan it all out and I just some simple questions.

Sean

Good luck.

Oh yeah I have another question:

Is a pilot episode like the start of the TV series?

Sean

The pilot episode is where you introduce each main character, so yes, its the first episode in a season. (I think).

-Chris

Quoted from Zombie Sean How many episodes are there in a TV series season? Does it matter or is there a specific number that you need to have to make a season? Sean

When a show gets cancelled in its first season, it usually runs eleven-to-thirteen episodes, and is replaced by a show called a mid-season replacement.  However, the goal of most network television shows is to have a full twenty-six episode season.  

In the twenty-six episode season, a show starts in the second week of September, and ends in late March or early April.  Most shows take a two week break in the second half of December.  

Trailer Park Boys had 6 episodes in Season 1. Personally I'd say whatever it takes for you to tell your first season.

Usually it is the Amount of Episodes a Station orders, Say FOX wants 10 hours of Lost, that 10 episodes. and so fourth,

Depending on when the shows comes on or how much you can put into a season to tell your story.

Say for instance you have one season to tell a storyline, there's six - seven episodes.

The typical full season of a TV series is between 22-26 episodes. Friends and 24 have 24. Star Trek is 26. Most virtual series adopt 22. The purpose of this number is for the shows to run for nine months allowing hiatus periods when their viewership may not be watching such as December, during which time a lot of shows do not have new material coming out.

To the best of my knowledge, A pilot episode is the very start of any series. The first ever episode, which is made even before the series.

This is to see if the series would be a hit, a pilot episode is for the producers and co to see if the series is worth while spending the big bucks on, through ratings etc. rather than go to the trouble of making the entire series to find out that it is not doing too good. The pilot gives them feedback, and if it's good they will go on and invest their cash into the project.  

The Office US had 6 episodes for season 1. Season 2 had a 22-episode order.

You might call the pilot episode the test screening for the series. Sometimes a pilot will air before any episodes are filmed and there will be a big lull between that initial pilot airing and the series actually beginning. I recall a series a long time ago that was just dumb. Only the pilot aired, and I never saw it again. Apparently, they took the feedback.

One of the more famous pilots of a series who took a different direction after it was filmed is Star Trek. The footage from the pilot was reused many moons later in a two part episode called The Menagerie, but most people had never seen the original pilot entitled "The Cage" until it was released on video. That video was actually a reconstructed pilot using B&W footage and footage from The Menagerie so it faded back and forth from B&W to color throughout. I think it has since been released in a full length color version. That's a prime example of a pilot being shot, screened, rewritten, and the series rereleased.

I agree, George.

However, THE TRIBE, another TV series that used to air over in the UK, which has finished after 5 series had 52 episodes per series. Each episode lasting half an hour. But due to viewer comments Channel 5, started showing two episodes edited together for an hour long episode.

It doesn't really matter at all. For instance, Friends had 10 seasons, each with 24 episodes. Fawlty Towers had 1 season, with 12 episodes.

Quoted from George Willson One of the more famous pilots of a series who took a different direction after it was filmed is Star Trek. The footage from the pilot was reused many moons later in a two part episode called The Menagerie, but most people had never seen the original pilot entitled "The Cage" until it was released on video. That video was actually a reconstructed pilot using B&W footage and footage from The Menagerie so it faded back and forth from B&W to color throughout. I think it has since been released in a full length color version. That's a prime example of a pilot being shot, screened, rewritten, and the series rereleased.

I have a videotape of THE CAGE.  It's the "all color collector's edition."  The videotape was released in 1989, and the pilot itself is a 64 minute film, just long enough for commercials to be added in a 90 minute TV timeslot.  It's full-color -- no switching from B&W to color.

The back of the tape says ...

"This special Collector's Edition includes the long lost color footage (believed to have been destroyed) from Gene Roddenberry's pilot episode of the STAR TREK television series.  In late 1988, Paramount Pictures was able to acquire the "lost" footage, and the result is this splendid, restored, color version.  The way it was originally shot and meant to be seen!  On the first voyage of the Starship Enterprise, Kirk's predecessor Captain Christopher Pike tries to rescue an Earth crew that disappeared eighteen years earlier.  But it's a trap!  Pike is imprisoned in a zoo-like cage and studied by a mysterious higher life form."

The tape package refers to it as "episode 99" because a pilot episode is supposed to be an example of what the series is like on an average episode, or what an average episode will be like once the introductory episodes have set up the story.  In the ladder case, the pilots are usually only meant to be screened for network executives.

But where Star Trek's THE CAGE is concerned, I've watched this tape many times, and if I were a network executive, I would have passed on that version of Star Trek also.  The characters were all strong and very well developed for a pilot episode, particularly the relationship between the captain and the doctor ... a doctor who was not McCoy. And the backdrops were well-painted.  I love how they painted elaborate backdrops in those days -- those painted backdrops show far cooler pictures than the CG effects they use nowdays. But although the characters were well-developed, and the backdrops were well-painted, there were too many little issues with their film-making skills, such as problems with their special effects which could have been solved with just a little more time.  And their sci-fi premise needed some more development.  Rather than a warp engine, they used an engine that could take them anywhere in the universe instantaneously ... such power would be cool, and I'd love to watch a show in which the characters have such power, but that concept -- and a few other concepts -- just didn't seem like a good fit for this particular starship crew.  There were ideas like that -- ideas within the sci-fi concepts of the show -- which just didn't seem to click correctly with the more dramatic aspects of the characters.  It's tough to explain what I mean, but you'll understand if you see THE CAGE.

Err ... yeah.  The Cage is a good example of a pilot ... and it's a fun show to watch.

Well, if you want absolute insanity, Soap Operas are daily and always have a new episode with no repeats. This means they have about 260 episodes per "season", though it is arguable they don't exactly run in seasons. This also means the writing is not exactly perfect.

I watched one episode of Days Of Our Lives where I honestly swear that one of the multiple storylines was the same scene written three different ways and they couldn't decide which rewrite to use. This scene was two talking heads in a room essentially pacing back and forth. All three times they discussed exactly the same issue in almost exactly the same way. Apparently, they were trying to delay something else or something. It was sad.

I watch a soap opera called PASSIONS.  It has the same head-writer as DAYS OF OUR LIVES.  Whenever they have a really redundant episode, the next episode is always really good.  The pace of 260 episodes per year must be really fun for the actors, but quite challenging for the writers.  Because of the sheer challenge of it, I would personally prefer to write for a soap opera than for movies.  Within that large quantity of writing, there are brief moments of great quality.  I've been a huge fan of PASSIONS since their second year, and the brief moments of quality never disappoint ... but you have to wait for those moments, but it's worthwhile.  Their most recent moment of quality on Passions was when supervillain Alastair Crane found the chalace which contains the powers of the universe and he said, "With this, I will rule the universe -- mwah hahahahahaha hahahahaha."  That was awesome!  But stuff like that is why it's the only soap on the SCI-FI CHANNEL, and stuff like that is also why they'll "jump the shark" soon if they're not careful.  

I NEED to see those characters take their bickering to space.

Ooo ... by the way, a good episode to watch if you don't typically watch soap operas but only want to see a really good episode every once in a while, is the June 29th episode of Passions.  On that episode, supervillain Alastair Crane has unleashed the powers of a religious relic and he begins an epic battle on the streets of Rome.  That battle will continue for several episodes, and Alastair will use hungry lions against some of the good guys on the July 5th episode.  Sometimes that show is better than a really good cartoon.