What was the Disney Channel 65-episode rule?

[hewontgo]

Here's the history of Disney Channel's controversial 65-episode rule, which took fan-favorites like 'Lizzie McGuire' and 'Even Stevens' too soon from us. https://t.co/ETwkqAVTs5
- Entertainment Weekly (@EW) July 20, 2024
If you watched Disney Channel a lot in the 1990s or early 2000s, they provided a variety of original shows from memorable live-

Comments

[picturemegone]

Disney is so greedy. If anyone has money, it's them.

[daredevilwolf]

wait which disney channel live sitcom got cancelled because the costars who played brother and sister on the show were having sex in real life?

[peddlestools]

WHAT

[daredevilwolf]

yeah i don't remember the name of the sitcom but the costars were having sex which prompted disney to cancel the show

[moirasrose]

are you talking about life with derek? that wasn't a disney show, and it wasn't canceled either. it was one they licensed from canada.

i also don't know if they actually dated irl back then, but i remember people shipped the step siblings on the show.

[akillarian]

The only good thing I can think of is the writer and producer can plan ahead their story line on how it will end, no cliffhanger

[varioussaints]

Same. I do wish more shows started off with a fixed endpoint in mind (for this reason I will always admire Vince Gilligan, his stories are so carefully plotted and every episode is pushing towards a fixed ending) and I think having a cap for seasons/episodes would help with that. On the other, it really, really sucks that these caps are typically unilaterally imposed on the shows (rather than worked out in dialogue with the showrunners, producers, writers, actors, etc.) and are mostly in favour of the company (so they can reduce costs down the line).

[kyokomurasaki]

Unfortunately even this doesn't work sometimes; Supernatural had a full story planned out for 5 seasons(!!) and iirc there wasn't supposed to be anything after that. Then Kripke left as showrunner because he didn't have any more story to tell and they dragged it on for another 10 seasons or however many they ended up with

[a_files06]

If I didnt know WHYYYYY Disney did it (so they could avoid raises)...it isnt a horrible rule? Every show can kind of plan accordingly.

But given that they only used it to be cheap and not pay people properly...it was/is shitty. And re-naming the show/changing the "location" in order to keep the show going and yet again...NOT give the cast raises was insanely shitty.

To me...100 episodes is perfect for most shows.

[pseudonygma]

Yeah, I have no doubt it's because of raises but it admittedly also make sense for children's television programs because the kids on these shows grow up too and having their characters graduate to high school/college would change the entire vibe of the show because it would be in this weird state of being rated for what the show use to be when it first aired vs what the show and its characters need to grow into to remain grounded and compelling. ABC's TGIF lineup had that problem but some shows (eg. Boy Meets World) handled it better than others (eg. Sabrina the Teenage Witch)

[a_files06]

I'm still sad that So Weird had 1 more season left and the actress left to get her education leading to a lighter/less stellar third season with a brand new character.

[imnotasquirrel]

i'm still salty! i feel like that sort of marked a tonal shift in disney shows because that's around the time that even stevens and lizzie mcguire aired. disney was afraid to get too dark, the cowards.