Updated on August 18, 2025, byRafa Boladeras: This article has been updated with additional information regarding recent Disney+ series likeSecret InvasionandAhsoka.
What the 6-Episode Structure Accomplishes
When evaluating the positive aspects of Disney+’s method of sharing new content on its platform,the six-episode is not completely a negative concept. The idea of breaking down a six-hour running time (with the exception of credits and post-credit scenes) has reintroduced a week-by-week schedule to the modern television industry. The retention of subscription rates has benefited from Disney+’s business model, as it requires audiences who want to watch a series through its entirety to commit to a certain amount of time with the streaming service. An elongated release schedule additionally up-keeps internet trends around a particular series or show. The conversation generated around these series experiences a peak of four to seven weeks across social media, if not even longer in some instances, and promotes a rewatch of the six-episode stint. If a show is granted more to follow, the six-episode run can acquaint an audience with what to expect by teasing important events through forms of foreshadowing. They fulfill the purpose of reaching a potential audience and indicating consumer interest.
Smaller series packaged in six episodes can position themselves as a metaphorical “launching pad” that addresses pivotal moments in narrative construction, introduces new conflict, seeks out new resolutions in troubled storylines, and encourages growth within a series. They are able to introduce transitional aspects into franchises, both large and small, through their run and participate in more momentous events in each. Six-episode structures can be viewed as a starting point for new eras or chapters in ongoing sagas or in some instances, act as an introduction to a new franchise. That’s what six-episode seasons did forMs. MarvelorMoon Knight, as both characters got their introduction into the Marvel Universe through their own series, both of which had that number of episodes.
Those six episodes also mean the series is less of a commitment for audiences. With so many people saying they need to do “homework” before going to see a new MCU film, it is easier to ask them to watch a six-episode series than ten or twelve-episode seasons. Audiences who want to knowwho Ms. Marvel is can binge her series in a day before seeingThe Marvels,instead of needing to watch an entire prestige television worth of a season.
Is the 6-Episode Structure Hurting Its Series?
In theory, yes. Disney+ has proven that the six-episode roadmap can require an audience to tune in on a weekly basis, though there are frustrations that are attached to a redundant formula. By only allotting a creative team a mere six hours to tell a complete story — or part of it if subsequent seasons are greenlit — there is not enough time for a complete story to be articulated to the best of its ability. Internet discourse has expressed disappointment with someDisney+ titles feeling incomplete, rushed, or unorganized as a result of such limited time frames (Obi-Wan KenobiandSecret Invasionhad that problem). Within six episodes, some series can be all too forgettable or are unable to stress their own importance. High expectations are commonly associated with shows or featurettes that are constricted to a run time that feels far too small for ambitious artists.
Related:Why Disney Films Will Always Appeal to Moviegoers
There is no means of discrediting titles that have met their goal within a six-episode span, though the choice to cut back on episode count has resulted in significant concerns. Missed opportunities due to poor planning or uneven weight distributed throughout six episodes have raised skeptical attitudes toward shorter seasons. A viewership should be left anticipating the next installation of said six-episode event instead of longing for missed opportunities that could not make the final cut. PerPaste Magazine, pacing issues have been an overwhelming consequence of these abbreviated runs and have stunted the reception of these series. These narrow six-episode spells have suffered a reduced run time that has eliminated possible potential. Even an episode or two more past the six-episode mark gave creative teams more room to fully conclude whatever mission a first season is determined to execute or give it more time to breathe and tell their story, as in the nine-episode season ofWandaVisionandShe-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
This Has Become A Major Issue For MCU Series
The biggest offender of the six-episode series is Marvel. Lucasfilm and Star Wars have been more adaptable. While Obi-Wan Kenobi was six episodes long, the rest of the slate has been flexible. All three seasons of The Mandalorian and the recently debutedAhsokaseries are eight episodes, whileThe Book of Boba Fettwas seven episodes. Both Andor and The Bad Batch were twelve episodes long.
Yet the MCU series have been rather strict with their series. With the exception ofShe-Hulk: Attorney at Law,What If…?andWandaVision, all of the series have been six episodes. At times,they feel like movies that are stretched out into television shows. While, in theory, this should allow for more character development, it also tends to leave a lot of padding with episodes that sort of meander. They now have a certain formula to them that audiences can expect, often taking two episodes to truly set up the series, while the major villain of the series is teased towards the end of the series when it is time to wrap things up.
Series likeThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier,Loki, andHawkeyeall feel like movie scripts stretched out to fit a television format, whileMoon KnightandSecret Invasionwould have benefited from being more episodes to flesh out their stories and world. WouldSecret Invasionhave been better with a longer order of episodes? Maybe. The problem with that show is that it looked like they made it to do something, and there wasn’t any intention behind it, as the character ends the show in almost the same position in which he started it. Maybe with 12 episodes, there would’ve been much more paranoia, and audiences would’ve felt the spy thriller tension they were saying they were going for, ormaybe it should’ve been a two-hour moviewith more money and more cameos to feel that really anyone could be a Skrull. What’s for sure is that deciding that the show was six episodes before the writers decided what story to tell didn’t help either.
How Disney+ Can Reconsider the 6-Episode Structure
The feedback and criticism made over the streaming platform’s rollout method of choice can provide constructive suggestions for the future of any series in development. Vocal Disney fans have voiced their experiences watching these series and have expressed wishes for limited shows to be converted into longer series or even movies. Disney+ can take into consideration that they have the ability to earn back their spending more on elaborate and lengthy productions through subscription costs. While the service is filledwith original media, they are able to reconsider the reception of highly anticipated titles being condensed into unnecessarily limited spaces. Earlier models of eight-episode series that could lean into double-digit territory fared well over time.
The six-episode structure should be used less liberally and only when it feels natural to do so. That should be the motivation. Does the story need six episodes to be told? 10? 12? Making the story the priority and the one that decides the number of chapters would help it immensely.Ms. Marvelhad more stories to tell than six episodes. It could’ve explored both the present and the past more profoundly, giving us more than a fifteen-minute prelude of how Kamala Khan’s great-grandparents fell in love.Andorhad 12 episodes, and it wouldn’t have worked with 6, as many of the greater things about the show were on the slow pace at what everything was happening.
Related:20 Best Movies On Disney+ to Stream Right Now
Longer series have struck an equilibrium of creative success and consumer satisfaction. The six-episode structure should be used at a more sparing pace where no unanswered questions or unresolved plot holes are left to mend. That’s not to completely call for the abandonment of the six-episode total altogether but to reserve it for the most appropriate situations. A collection of smaller bite-sized shorts is the perfect form of an articulating short-form series.
Their loose connection to parent projects anchors them to a specific title, series, or saga without feeling the pressure to carry the weight of more important narrative arcs. Feature-length films or series that are permitted a higher episode count are more suited for larger, more ambitious work that is constructed with the intention of bearing more importance. By reviewing how each series is constructed, Disney+ can find shared space for both six-episode media and more traditional long-form releases.
Future Disney+ Slate
As mentioned earlier,Ahsokajust premiered on Disney+ and is set to air eight episodes. WhileEchowill be six episodes, Disney+ is breaking from the convention for their MCU series andreleasing all six episodes at once. This might work better for the series, as the six-episode structure on a week-to-week basis has left viewers frustrated as some episodes don’t build to satisfying conclusions on their own, so an entire streaming release at once might negate some of the poor reviews.
Meanwhile, Disney+ plans forDaredevil: Born Againto be a grand total of 18 episodes, triple the amount of a normal MCU Disney+ series. It will be interesting to see if Disney+ releases all the episodes week to week or if they break it into two nine-episode parts so it has a similar weekly rollout asShe-Hulk: Attorney at LawandWandaVision.Lokiseason two will have six episodes, and so will planned MCU seriesAgatha: Coven of ChaosandIronheart. Hopefully, after four years, the MCU Disney+ series learn how to properly utilize a six-episode format.
