Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26715865-20151102073210/@comment-4453062-20151102201518

Often I think OUAT would be better off if each Season were 13 episodes, rather than a full 22 episode Season. 11 episodes aren't quite enough to tell these storylines that they want to tell, and I feel 22 episodes for some of these storylines would drag. Could you imagine 22 episodes stuck in Neverland, had Season 3 not gone for the split-Season format? Many people complained about Neverland's pacing and its constant dark jungle set as it was. However, Neverland still felt rushed in other areas, especially episodes 309-311. We definitely could have gotten more episodes with Pan in Storybrooke, for one. I feel another problem with the current format is that the B half of the Season comes across as underdeveloped. They write and film each episode of the Season one right after the other, so they don't have enough time to properly take a break and brainstorm pefore jumping into the 2nd half. 4B's Queens of Darkness storyline especially seemed to suffer from this.

If each Season were only 13 episodes, that would give the writers a lot more time to focus on making those 13 episodes the best they can possibly be. And I do think that 2 extra episodes compared to the 11 episode structure could be enough to fix the pacing for these storylines.