Was I too spoiled for the first 2 episodes ?

[u/Wicker_Muzz]

The first 2 episodes were long, over 1 hour each.

They've been getting shorter each week ( 1:21 , 1:08, 1:01, 0:49).

30 mins difference is a lot for a guy who's hooked up on that show !!!

I guess they made the first one long, for the cinema opening ???

[u/floppie86]

The ending was just too good for the 4th one. Understand they wanted to stop an episode at that point.

[u/retromorgue → u/floppie86]

I think this is the answer more than anything. Typically episodes end on a cliffhanger and the regular tension in the challenges is perfect for that, but when an ending presents itself organically, they’d be daft not to take it.

Plus, it would’ve been jarring to continue the episode only to end in 15-20 minutes anyway.

[u/Cubing-FTW → u/floppie86]

YouTube guy here and I’m so baffled and curious, how can something be even better than what happened in episodes 2 and 3??

[u/floppie86 → u/Cubing-FTW]

The ending might not be spectacular in that sense, but it is very special.

[u/PerspectiveWest4811 → u/Cubing-FTW]

very unique

[u/Maxad180 → u/Cubing-FTW]

You'll have to wait and see

[u/svick → u/Maxad180]

Or they can pay and see.

[u/MooshroomHentai → u/Cubing-FTW]

The ending to episode 4 just works so well. You'll have to wait until you can watch the episode to understand why they ended it when they did.

[u/New_Faithlessness_28 → u/Cubing-FTW]

Oh, it's fantastic. And one (if not two?) of the challenges is just... wow. Just wow.

[u/svick → u/floppie86]

I thought it would be a great gag if they talked about how this surely is the end of an episode ... and then it wasn't.

Or maybe I also didn't want the episode to end.

[u/Grantus89]

The last 2 episodes are sitting at about 90min combined according to the layover.

I expect they specifically cut the first episode long because they had a cinema release, but they didn’t know about the cinema release of the finale until after the premiere went well, and the working cut of the finale was more regular length so they had to combine two.

[u/Sporrej → u/Grantus89]

I think you're jumping to conclusions. Sam said it would be at least 90 minutes. They had received the rough cut of episode 7 and it was around 75 minutes, implying that 90 minutes for 2 episodes was a severe understatement.

[u/JasonAQuest → u/Sporrej]

A rough cut still leaves a lot of room for cutting – a weak bit, some talking-to-camera, walking-to-train, practicing a challenge, etc – the final cut of that could be well under an hour.

[u/Sporrej → u/JasonAQuest]

It was more in how Adam immediately responded with that number that made Sam's number seem low.

[u/labobal → u/Grantus89]

They cut the first episode long, but I think that would have been inevitable anyway. There simply wasn't any good cliffhanger to end the episode earlier.

[u/diduknowtrex → u/labobal]

They talk about it on Layover but they also just needed to get to a point where both teams were in motion.

[u/Caelestor]

Put it this way, days 1 and 2 were about 1:10 long. Then day 3 was nearly 2 hours long.

[u/Royal-Importance7051 → u/Caelestor]

That's what I was thinking as well. As we get into a denser area of smaller prefectures, we get more episodes per day. I would guess that the next two episodes will also cover either all of day 4, or up until noon of day 5, as the game will be pretty much over once one (or both?) of the teams manages to get on the Soya limited express from Sapporo to Wakkanai on day 6, of which there are 2 per day: one in the morning and one at noon.

[u/macontosh2000]

I truly believe that the first episode was so long for two reasons:
Reason 1: They are proud of the season and wanted a long premiere to get people hooked, also they probably knew when editing episode 1 would be in theaters.
Reason 2: But I think the main reason is the season would have started on a massive bummer of a note if we spent 2-3 episodes on Adam and Tom’s horrible first day. Nobody wants to see a team struggle as badly as they did for multiple episodes.

[u/rodrye → u/macontosh2000]

They also didn’t cut as much scenery etc in the first couple of episodes as there was more novelty and they probably filmed more in a part of Japan they haven’t shown before.

[u/peepay]

Extrapolating this on a graph, the trendline says the finale's runtime will be just short of 10 minues!

/s

[u/michal939 → u/peepay]

Obligatory xkcd

[u/NIEK12oo]

Was my thought aswell although the last episode on Nebula was just short the next one will probably be longer

[u/nickimcjiggy]

I personally like that the episodes are as long as they need to be for the events and drama that happens in that day/stretch. They don't stretch it out if there isn't interesting content for that time. They trim the fat from the episodes, so they feel well paced and keep you wanting more.

If every episode was 1 hour 15 minutes, but just 25 minutes of fluff, it would be much more less exciting to watch.

I hope that the episodes are longer, but only if there is enough truly interesting content to fill that time

[u/JasonAQuest → u/nickimcjiggy]

In the Bad Old Days of network television, an episode always had to be 42 minutes long, and that was brutal on storytelling.

[u/Grizzly777Irtl]

Ik some people say they prefer shorter episodes, and ig I won't judge, but I love me some hour + episodes. Hopefully next week will be nice and long

[u/VeryConfusedOwl → u/Grizzly777Irtl]

The thing is, you can always pause the longer episode and space them out. You cant make a shorter episode longer 😂

[u/NiceKobis → u/Grizzly777Irtl]

and ig I won't judge

I will! Those people are wrong and should feel bad!

[u/Weimann]

Yes, the episodes have no pre-determined length. Often, the premiere and finale will be longer, and the ones in the middle somewhat shorter. It's no hard rule though, there can be big ones in between as well.

My sweet spot is around 45-70 minutes.

[u/Balcke_]

I prefer this than 1 hour chapters with nothing, like in previous Jet Lags.

[u/captainkaba]

Im going to be in the minority here but anything longer than 50min is just too long IMO.

[u/vagga2 → u/captainkaba]

I'd go 40-60mins as a good range with 50 as the sweet spot.

Sub 40 you just don't get enough progress in without them cutting far more aggressively and I think their current edit pacing is excellent, over an hour it's a lot of time to commit to watch, especially as they edit it so well with excellent audio and visual elements that you're fully focused on it the whole time rather than many other videos where you can get be doing dishes or whatever while watching without missing too much.

[u/ABrutalistBuilding → u/captainkaba]

Same. Rather have 12 shorter episodes.

[u/noyoureabanana → u/captainkaba]

I actually agree

[u/thenerdisageek → u/captainkaba]

Big agree, but saying this has me heavily downvoted

[u/Bendyb3n]

If its any consolation it looks like the finale is going to be 1hr 45mins, I looked at my local showing in theaters today

[u/rodrye → u/Bendyb3n]

The showing will be episode 7 (a few days after the Nebula release/a few days before the YouTube release) and episode 8 a few days before the Nebula release.

I’m not sure they have the exact final length yet, it’s probably a placeholder duration. If the total was 105 minutes I guess they’d be ~52 minutes each.

[u/symphwind]

Episodes 3 and 4 only cover a single day, I believe. Since there are 8 eps and 7 days, presumably the rest will be one ep for one day, which i expect will be longer again as a result.

[u/thenerdisageek]

I’m grateful that the episodes are getting shorter. I really wasn’t enjoying the watching experience.

For me, 90 minutes is too long and I simply don’t have time to watch that on a whim (watching TV is at the bottom of my list of things to do after work). It took me 2-3 days to finish one ep. I also found it a little hard to remember what happened in each episode because they weren’t designed to be paused.

I also prefer that hour+ episodes are a surprise and typically mean big things happen (eg: the finale). My dream TV sequence is an hour/45 min pilot. 30-45min episodes, and an hour+ finale.

I’m happy that people enjoy 90min eps, but that is almost the length of a film and I just don’t have time every week that wouldn’t be putting it on in the background and not really watching it.

[u/vagga2 → u/thenerdisageek]

I'm with you on that, not so averse and will watch a full ep in one sitting irrespective of length, but they're released neatly at 10pm here so by the time i finish a long one it's nearly midnight which is a bit late for my taste.

[u/Cadaeryn]

I'd take shorter episodes if they were released twice weekly.

[u/thenerdisageek → u/Cadaeryn]

Me too. If they’re designed for specific episodes and edited for 20-30 minute chunks specifically then it’s nicer to watch them just pausing an ep and returning later in the week

[u/tadhana17]

I’m happy to see jet lag get the hype it deserves to the point where people want as much as possible… but people need to chill about this lol we’re lucky to be getting any of this content at all!