British Brevity - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Not hard to see why it's England's longest running series, and today, we're showing all seven episodes."

— PBS Guy, The Simpsons

Shows are made differently in Britain, and perhaps the biggest sign of this is length. A full-length season in America is generally considered twenty-four episodes — many seasons run twelve or less, but usually this reflects budgetary constraints, a first season which is something of a trial period for the show, or some other special circumstance. British shows, on the other hand, tend to produce only about ten episodes a year if they're dramatic, or about six if they're comedies.

There are a number of reasons for this, the simplest being that British shows usually have a fairly small creative team — it's not uncommon at all for one person to single-handedly write every episode of a show, as Steven Moffat did with Coupling, or David Renwick with Jonathan Creek. This creative consistency, added to the fact that the British can spend a whole year putting together an amount of screentime that an American show produces in less than two months, often results in a show of satisfyingly concentrated quality. On the other hand, there's more pressure to succeed (ruin two episodes and that's a third of a season down the tubes), less chance to make a lasting impression, and it makes it hard to develop long-arcing plotlines. This also means that shows tend to have the entire series filmed before broadcast, so shows are rarely cancelled mid-season, or affected by events like the US writers' strike.

Examples:

Perhaps most notable is Fawlty Towers; one of the more famous and well-regarded television series ever made, and there were only ever twelve episodes, from two seasons made four years apart.
Ricky Gervais has a specific limit to his shows: two six-episode seasons, and a Christmas special to wrap everything up. Both The Office and Extras have followed this format.
Mr Bean posed an enigma to its viewers: when does a TV series stop being a TV series and start being a succession of made-for-television comedy specials?
Red Dwarf lengthened from six episodes a season to eight for the last two seasons. That this coincided with what most viewers see as the shark jump has not gone unnoticed.
An exception is Doctor Who, whose very first season had 42 half-hour episodes; this was halved from the seventh season on, due to concern about the regular cast's endurance, and subsequently whittled away by budget restrictions, eventually settling at 14 half-hour episodes per season. However, until the new series, each episode was part of a larger serial, and there were generally less than ten serials in a season, with the average being around six or seven. The new series has 13 45-minute episodes per season, plus an hourlong Christmas special. These generally run to an hour and an hour and a half in foreign syndication, due to the addition of advertisments (which are not shown on The BBC).
- It's not really an exception, because the six-episode thing usually only applies to sitcoms.
Life On Mars wound up its plot after two seasons of eight episodes each. Its followon series Ashes To Ashes will have three seasons, or twenty-four episodes total: about the same as one US season.
The Vicar Of Dibley had seasons of four to six episodes each, and then wound down to one or two specials per year.
The Young Ones was a very influential 'Alternative Comedy' series, and retains a cult following. Only twelve episodes (two seasons) were ever made.
The third season of Waterloo Road, with 20 60-minute episodes, must set some kind of 21st-century UK record for a non-Soap Opera, being longer in screen time than most American seasons.
Blackadder is actually 4 different series, each one launched with no expectations of making another. In fact, each series was picked up a year after its predecessor had ended.
Rather ironically, this trope is averted with British sitcom Last Of The Summer Wine which is in fact the longest running sitcom ever made. It started in 1973 and has been running ever since, despite the death of several cast members and by extension at least two main characters, having a grand total of 28 series.
And Hi-de-Hi! - 58 episodes in 9 seasons over 8 years, and there almost certainly would have been more if the real-life holiday camp used for all the location shooting hadn't been closed, sold off and bulldozed for housing.
And Dad's Army - 80 episodes in 9 seasons over 9 years. And a feature film.
The Prisoner. (Originally scheduled for 26 episodes but cut back to 17.)
Channel 4 Sitcom Spaced had seven episodes in each of its two series.
Primeval had six episodes in its first season, and seven in the second, giving it a grand episode count of thirteen episodes.
Father Ted achieved iconic status in Ireland despite showing just 25 episodes over three seasons.
Jeeves And Wooster was 4 seasons long, each with 6 episodes that clocked in at about 55 minutes each (with the exception of season 1, which only had 5 episodes).
All too common in BBC children’s animations. Mr Benn, Bagpuss, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley all had just 13 episodes each, which were repeated (to rapt audiences of youngsters) over and over during the 70s and 80s. Likewise, Postman Pat featured just 13 episodes throughout the 80s (huge popularity led to a 10th anniversary special in 1991, further specials in 1992 and 1995, a one-off series of 13 more episodes in 1997 and, finally, regular ongoing series from 2004 on).
Ultraviolet: Six two-part episodes. The creator explicitly stated it was exactly as long as he wanted it to be, so as to avoid screwing up the intelligent plots and premise - like the American adaptation did so badly even the directors of that agreed it was good that it wasn't picked up.
Australia has a similiar position on series length. Usually, however, two series a year are made.
- The Librarians had six episodes in it's first series.
- Thank God You're Here has 13 episodes a series.
- The Hollowmen has six episodes a series, with three series over one year.
- Chris Lilley's has done two one-season shows so far: Summer Heights High and We Can Be Heroes, which ran 8 and 6 episodes, respectively.