Youku Changing Modern Workplace C-drama Irreplaceable with Zhao Jin Mai and Wei Da Xun into 20-minute Medium Length Episodes Aligned with Industry Trend and Policy Changes
So this may be the start of a new format that will become commonplace, time will tell. Reportedly Youku will cut it’s already finished modern workplace C-drama Irreplaceable with Zhao Jin Mai and Wei Da Xun into 20-minute episodes and turning it into a medium length format. The current long form dramas are typically 40-60 minute episodes and of course there are the short/micro dramas with mere minutes an episodes. Policy makers have already curtailed drama lengths by mandating a 40-episodes max, that led to dramas changing to multi season to get around it. Now the push is to remove filler material and keep the dramas focused on the main plot, hence this potential evolution to mid-length dramas. I’m really sad that the era of true storytelling with the dramas being as long as needed to really take its time to flesh out the story are gone, and this push feels like it’s feeding into the short attention spans of people that is already not a good thing.
Honestly I’m glad. Always feel cdramas add to many fillers. Like second cp story that I rarely care and always skip. Should just make story about main couple and another drama for 2nd couple. If Kdramas can be 16eps and jdramas kan be 10 eps why do cdramas need 40 esp for modern dramas.
40 to 60 minutes isn’t long for an episode, it’s just that production companies or broadcast platforms wanted to maximize profits so they insisted on having as many episodes as possible. This resulted in many filler materials and reduced the quality of the dramas. We can see they still want to keep as many episodes as possible, that’s why they turned to reducing the time per episode instead of the number of episodes.
This new policy perhaps temporarily solve the common dragging issue of Cdramas. But for the long run, it will not enhance production quality. The central problem prevailing in Cdrama production is lack of creativity and professionalism. Nepotism doesn’t help either. lol