The Umbrella Academy creator, Steve Blackman, explained to fans why the show’s season two episodes are shorter than season 1. The Umbrella Academy tells the story of the Hargreeves siblings, a family with superhero abilities, who attempt to thwart the apocalypse, which is triggered when their sister Vanya loses control over her powers.
The cast of The Umbrella Academy includes Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lapman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin Min, and Ellen Page as the Hargreeves siblings. In season 1, the Hargreeves discover their ordinary sister Vanya (Ellen Page) actually had powers that had been hidden from them by their cruel father Reginald Hargreeves, who discovered he could not control her. Vanya becomes evil after succumbing to her powers and accidentally causes the apocalypse. In season 2, the Hargreeves family is transported back in time to the 1960s in an attempt to survive the apocalypse and stop their sister Vanya from turning evil. All ten episodes of season one of The Umbrella Academy run between 55 minutes to an hour in order to tell the stories as best as possible without leaving out any information. The new ten episodes in season two run between 40 to 45 minutes total.
With The Umbrella Academy season 2 now on Netflix, fans were curious why season 2's episodes were shorter than season 1's. During the CTAM 2020 Press Tour covered by Alex Zalben on Twitter, Umbrella Academy creator Blackman, was asked why the episodes were shorter in season two. Blackman responded that is was necessary to shorten the episodes to around 45 minutes for a better binge-watching length for audiences at home. Blackman stated, “That's what made us think, let's shorten our show a little bit.” He then emphasized that he felt that 45 minutes was more manageable for viewers as opposed to hour-long episodes with lots of information crammed into them.
Blackman expressed that while writing shorter scripts was a challenge for the team, it allowed for more exploration into the storyline and characters over the course of the series. By providing fans with bits of information throughout ten episodes, as opposed to lots of information in one episode, the audience has an easier time processing what is happening in the story. There is a great deal of potential in this type of storytelling, especially if Netflix decides to fund a third season of the popular series. If a third season is part of the show’s future, Blackman and his writers will have even more source material to draw from since Gerard Way, creator of The Umbrella Academy comics, announced the release of Tales from the Umbrella Academy for September 2020.
The original comic series is made up of three volumes with six comics each and a few short stories included. This is a great deal of information to cover in ten episodes; however, Steve Blackman and the rest of The Umbrella Academy creators have been able to do just that. Without losing key elements of information from the comics, Blackman and his team have been able to develop and adapt The Umbrella Academy into the successful TV series that it is. If The Umbrella Academy season 3 does get developed, fans can look forward to more of this continued style of storytelling with another set of ten 45 minute episodes to binge-watch to their heart’s content.
Source: Steve Blackman (via Alex Zalben)