Netflix is no stranger to shorter season episode counts, as they reshaped the way drama and comedy series would be structured. The once 22-episode runs from broadcasts started to go down to the famous 13-episode era that kicked off when Daredevil was released. Yet, we’ve seen that episode count continue to decline with more ten-episode seasons and as of late, a focus on eight episodes.
As it turns out though, this isn’t something that a group of creatives indirectly decided together but rather a new mandate set by Netflix. Warrior Nun showrunner Simon Barry revealed it in an interview with Be More Super Podcast that around the time they were writing their second season, that mandate was introduced and allowed them to adapt their scripts.
We knew it was going to be eight in the writing room because the Netflix mandate wasn’t a budget thing. It was Netflix shifting all their shows to eight-episode seasons, their studio shows I should say, not the shows they acquire and broadbust but the ones they make inhouse as a studio. So, we knew that Netflix decided to make this shift across the board but it wasn’t something Warrior Nun was being punished for anything, we existed long enough to see it go from 10 to 8 for everyone.
Simon Barry
The first season of Warrior Nun was still part of the ten-episode era and many worried that perhaps the episode reduction was due to some criticism of that first entry. Yet, it seems they merely swiftly adjusted before entering production and had to rewrite the entire show; even if that sadly didn’t help them from getting canceled after the second season was released back in November.
Given the timing, this news also matches with our exclusive a year ago that the live-action One Piece series has also reduced its episode count to eight. It was initially announced with ten episodes all the way back in 2020 but the timing would match with the new mandate. The Witcher also was quite a success with that same episode count back in 2019 and may have inspired the new standard.
Source: YouTube
