On The Half Hour Drama
What is the difference between a comedy and a drama?
At first it seems easy enough to define, comedies are meant to make you laugh and dramas are meant to... make you emotional?
Cry?
Have conflicts?
All the elements that label something as a drama exist in comedies as well. It might almost be easier to say that there are comedies and then there is everything else, “non-comedy”.
I ponder a bit about genre classifications because in the world of television, this is primarily how shows are divided.
There are comedies and there are dramas.
For the longest time that meant one thing, all comedy TV shows would have episode lengths that run 30 minutes and drama shows would be 60 minutes. It was a set system for decades that never seemed to get questioned outside of a few exceptions here or there like the influential anthology show, The Twilight Zone or the early seasons Gunsmoke.
Like all aspects of television, streaming changed how we look at episode lengths. Not burdened by the need to input commercials, showrunners started making episodes as long or as short as they wanted. Sometimes even within the same show, runtimes would vary, like Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad, which went from a weighty eighty minute episode to a short and sweet twenty minute episode in the same season.
The loosening restrictions has allowed for more half hour dramas to take shape.
Homecoming was probably the first 30 minute drama I’d watched for myself from the streaming era and it made me wonder why we don’t see more of them. Based on a scripted podcast about a military social worker trying to recover from amnesia, Homecoming is a tightly plotted and singularly focused show. While it’s told in two different timelines, it still only follows one story and character all through its first season. It’s a refreshing watch, the brief runtime of five hours cuts out any fat, but it doesn’t forget that it’s still a TV show, not a film, taking advantage of the episodic structure to give us several cliffhangers and plot twists in each episode.
The original podcast had half hour installments as well and creator, Sam Esmail (of Mr. Robot fame), made the conscious choice to not over inflate the given material just to fit into the prestige drama box. “Keeping the episodes more compact,” Esmail decided, “might feel more impactful than dragging them out to an hour.”
Other half hour dramas, like the Irish romantic drama, Normal People that swept the world by storm in 2020, also took cues from its source material. Sally Rooney’s best selling book clocks in at just a little over 250 pages and she chooses to honor that brevity when bringing it to the screen. Rooney, a writer and producer on the show as well, had the twelve episodes of Normal People feel almost like short book chapters, like the audience is peeking into the complicated minds of young adults, Marianne and Connell, to get mere snapshots of their lives and relationships.
Of course there’s an argument to be made that these shows could simply make five or six hour long episodes as well and still get the same effect. But this thinking is where we get the toxic idea that a miniseries or several seasons of television can just be an “extended movie”.
It’s an frustrating way to look at the medium of television and it’s one that showrunners and writers keep using in an attempt to seem more “prestigious” and high brow, as if television is inferior to film and the only way to signify their importance is to compare it to cinema. Television is meant to be watched in installments and the best TV shows no matter the length, never forget the importance and power of a singular episode.
Too many terrible shows and limited series are being turned in due to bloated episode lengths and snail like pacing that makes the viewing experience feel like a hostage situation.
The brief runtime of a 30 minute show also has advantages outside of narrative pacing.
I May Destroy You is a emotional, brutal drama surrounding sexual assault. Creator and star Michaela Coel’s writing is brilliant but it’s a tough watch, especially for those who may find themselves triggered by its content. The shorter length allowed for some breathing room for viewers week to week as they watched Arabella’s healing journey after her assault.
In animation, the half hour drama is already a proven concept. Japan has been making adult dramatic fare for decades now with anime and the while few and far between, most American animated dramas (Undone, Aeon Flux, Samurai Jack, Primal etc.) have all stuck to the 30 minute runtime. (Refer back to my last issue on the changing animation landscape for more detail).
I can’t help but think what other types of non comedic stories could be aided by shorter installments?
2022 so far has seen a glut of biographic miniseries. While not a new trend at all (trust I will unpack the biopic epidemic another day), it seems like in the past year there’s been two to three high profile “prestige” limited series premiering every month.
From The Dropout to Pam & Tommy to Gaslit to The First Lady to Inventing Anna and more, the critical consensus has been varied across the board but a consistent complaint from reviewers I’ve noticed time and time again is length.
When used correctly an expanded five to ten hours of content can shed more light on a subject or historical event that wouldn’t get told properly in a regular two hour film. On the flipside, a bad limited series can feel as if it's stretching and padding with unnecessary information just to fill a certain runtime.
Why don’t we see more half hour TV biopics?
Shorter isn’t necessarily always better but maybe we wouldn’t have so many recent middling attempts at a prestige Emmy play if we switched up the format and structure of certain stories.
In reality the half hour drama truly isn’t that rare of a concept, in fact much of the TV that is branded as “comedy” runs closer to the “dramedy” side (a loose genre and concept if I’d ever seen one).
Shows like Atlanta, Russian Doll, Reservation Dogs etc. are labeled comedies and compete for comedy awards but their actual writing feels quite dramatic at times with a few laughs sprinkled in. Yes, these shows may set up a joke or two and are full of irony and social satire but does that make something a “comedy”? (Someone explain to me like I’m five what makes Succession a drama but Atlanta a comedy?)
While I can't answer that, more and more people are asking the same questions as more TV is made that blurs the line between genres.
Last year the Television Academy finally got rid of the Emmy rule that stipulated that half hour shows automatically compete in the comedy category and hour long shows compete in drama. We'll see come July when nominations are announced how significant this change will be, but it gives me hope.
It’s nice to see that TV that breaks traditional norms is finally being catered to. I will always champion for more half hour dramas.
Personally I’m most excited for Sally Rooney’s follow-up, Conversations with Friends and I can’t wait to see what else comes out in the future.