Matt Groening Explains Why ‘The Simpsons’ Is Slashing Five Episodes From Future Seasons
Starting with Season 37 of The Simpsons, Fox viewers will only see 15 episodes of their favorite long-running animated series while The Mouse gets two streaming-exclusive episodes on Disney+. Next thing you know, they’re going to introduce a talking dog.
As the entire TV industry continues to tighten its belt in response to the unceremonious end of the streaming boom, even the tentpole franchises of television aren’t immune to austerity measures, as, over the next four seasons, The Simpsons will premiere five fewer episodes per year on streaming and on cable. While Season 36 featured 18 episodes on the show’s long-time home at Fox and four Disney+ exclusive specials, Season 37 will cut two entries from each platform. But The Simpsons’ creator and showrunner swear that, when it comes to quality, less can be more.
In a recent interview with Variety, Simpsons creator Matt Groening and showrunner Matt Selman revealed the move to 17 total episodes per season, but as Groening puts it, “Work has a way of expanding to fill the time available.”
Don't Miss
Case in point: Homer’s been stretching half a job into 36 years of storylines.
During the talk, Selman promised that the reduction in volume won’t slow down the Simpsons team’s productivity. “We used to do 22 (episodes) a year. For the next four (seasons), we’re doing 17 a year,” Selman explained. “Fifteen that will premiere in America on Fox, and then two exclusives on Disney+. It’s still a full-time job.”
Groening agreed that his writers won’t spend the next four years twiddling their thumbs roughly 22.7 percent more often than in previous seasons, saying, “If you know that you have four seasons to think about, it changes how you approach storytelling.”
But that’s not the only change to The Simpsons release schedule that will be conducive to better storytelling. For the new Disney+ streaming specials that will apparently become a staple of each Simpsons season, the corporate overlords have decided to allow the Simpsons team to release an extended cut of the special episodes after the original version premieres, giving the writers more breathing room for complex plot lines.
So, while The Simpsons will reduce the overall runtime of each season, Disney will give the legendary series some added flexibility that the traditional Fox model doesn’t allow for. I guess it’s trying to finally become the not-so-evil corporation.
