The Last of Us Season 3 may have been green-lit, but it has a problem, and it’s an issue plaguing modern television: everything is taking way too long.
Season 2 only had seven episodes. In that time, the show managed to kill off Joel, chronicle Ellie’s entire three-day experience in Seattle, explore what happened between her and Joel after the events of Season 1, explain the fate of Eugene, and tee up Season 3’s Abby switcheroo with its shocking, divisive ending.
That’s a lot of plot, considering it’s an adaptation of a game that takes between 20-40 hours to complete (and you play as Abby around 12 hours into the story). The TV show has managed to do it in less than seven hours while streamlining and expanding some parts; whether or not it feels rushed is subjective, but it’s easy to understand fans’ criticisms.
But that’s not the main issue. The first season had nine episodes, and then we had to wait just under two years for a second, shorter batch of episodes. Now, off the back of a big cliffhanger, we’re waiting again, and Season 3 (probably) won’t be out until 2027. So, here’s the question: What the hell has happened to TV?
The Last of Us is another TV show that’s taking too long
The Season 2 finale pulled in 3.7 million viewers, a 55% drop from Season 1’s 8.2 million (HBO insists the show still has a higher average viewer figure per episode than the first season).
It’s possible that people stopped watching after Joel’s death, but there’s another reason worth considering: if viewers know they’re going to need to wait a long time to see what happens, what’s the rush to check out the finale? Or, worse yet, what if they decide to abandon the show altogether because they’re fed up with the stop-start experience of watching it?
Neither HBO nor The Last of Us showrunners have confirmed when Season 3 will be released, but given Season 2’s shooting timeline, don’t expect to see it until late 2026 at the absolute earliest – and even then, 2027 seems more likely.
There are obvious factors: each season requires extensive VFX work and planning, and they depend on the scheduling of its increasingly famous cast (Pedro Pascal has Fantastic Four, The Mandalorian and Grogu, and Avengers: Doomsday coming out between now and 2027). In an earlier interview with THR, Mazin said they’d developed a “more efficient process” on the second season – and it still took two years to come back with seven episodes.
Other shows are guilty of the same problem. The Boys Season 5 won’t be released until 2026, House of the Dragon Season 3 is expected to drop next year (though with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms being delayed, there’s a chance it could be bumped), and god knows how long it will take Ben Stiller and co. to make Severance Season 3.
Stranger Things Season 5, the final season of Netflix’s flagship series, is expected to start streaming nine years after the first season premiered. Nine.
I am sympathetic to the scale of these productions; HOTD’s showrunner Ryan Condal said it’s “so complex that we’re really making multiple feature films every season.” However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem.
Let’s look at the three best TV shows of all time: Breaking Bad, Succession, and The Sopranos. Below, you’ll find the start and end date of each series, and how many seasons (and episodes) they ran for.
The Last of Us started filming in July 2021. In just shy of four years, the series has produced a total of 17 episodes, a mere fraction of what broadcasters and studios once pumped out.
If TLOU’s finale numbers are down significantly from the first season, that isn’t a good sign. “Audiences get connected to a show, and when they’re away from it for too long, it’s easy to fall out of love and forget what attracted you to it in the first place,” ER and West Wing producer John Wells told Vulture.
“Not having [new episodes] available for a long period of time is one of the reasons why shows decline rather than build an audience – even shows that come on big in their first year.”
There’s still hope. HBO Max’s The Pitt is aiming to produce a new season of 15-plus episodes every year. Funnily enough, The Pitt has been widely compared to ER (including in a lawsuit, but that’s another story) – maybe it’ll pave the way for a renewed era of speedy television, or maybe it’ll remain an exception to the new rule.
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