Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Abbott Elementary’ & ‘Young Sheldon’ Top Episode Counts For Post-Strike 2023-24 Broadcast Season
EXCLUSIVE: With the SAG-AFTRA strike officially ending yesterday, the broadcast networks are firming up the sizes of the 2023-24 orders to their scripted series, whose production was delayed by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA work stoppages.
As Deadline has reported over the past week, because of the early November timing of the actors strike’s end, returning broadcast scripted series will be producing between 10-13 episodes for this season to start rolling out in February. (Series on the 10-episode end include Grey’s Anatomy and The Neighborhood, the group of shows with 13-episode seasons include the Wolf Entertainment Chicago, Law & Order and FBI dramas.)
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There are two notable exceptions, CBS’ Young Sheldon and ABC’s Abbott Elementary, which will do more. Details are still being ironed out, but I hear Young Sheldon‘s upcoming seventh season will consist of 14-15 episodes. Abbott Elementary‘s third season will have 14 episodes, sources said.
This should not come as a surprise. Both Young Sheldon and Abbott Elementary are half-hour comedies, and while as single-camera they take longer to produce than multi-camera sitcoms, they still can be filmed and delivered faster than drama series.
Additionally, Young Sheldon and Abbott Elementary are both their respective networks’ flagship comedy series that are well received by viewers and critics and are sought after by advertisers.
On Abbott Elementary, as Deadline reported, ABC and lead producing studio Warner Bros. TV got into a back-and-forth after the end of the WGA strike when the broadcast networks started more serious return-to-production planning. At the time, ABC was asking for 13 episodes while the studio wanted to produce 17. For weeks, the two sides could not come to an agreement. Following the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike, ABC and WBTV settled on a 14-episode third season of the award-winning comedy.
As for Young Sheldon, The Big Bang Theory prequel’s upcoming seventh season is the last in a three-year pickup the comedy received in 2021. There has been speculation that the show’s story could come to a natural end with Season 7 but no decision has been made on this being Young Sheldon‘s final chapter, sources said.
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