Kevin Smith Says Netflix's Algorithm Demanded 'Masters Of The Universe: Revolution’

TV & Film

Feb 4

When Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revolution premiered in January of this year, one of the main criticisms of the show was that it felt overloaded with story in only five episodes. This is in contrast to Masters of the Universe: Revelation, which was allowed to unfold its narrative across ten episodes released in two parts. Many fans have speculated about the reasons behind the limited number of episodes, whether it was Smith's decision or someone else's. The answer was provided during Smith's podcast, Fatman on Batman, when he addressed the issue.

“What they learned from the algorithm, was like — and this is what they said to us, they break all the information down — they’re like, ‘overall, you had too many episodes. Your show needs to be five episodes.’ And so, they’re like, ‘you can go again, but it’s gotta be five episodes.’ And we’re like ‘alright, we can do that.’ And honestly, having five episodes forces every choice to be like this is gotta be f-cking epic worthy. Because we don’t have that many minutes to play with, there’s not that much real estate. So, you’re you know, moving the story along at perhaps a more brisk pace than you would like, maybe it’d be nice to have one or two more episodes to let it breathe, but we’re playing the ball where it laid, and sh-t.
And honestly, because of that, I think that helped it. Like that made people be like, here, you always want to leave people wanting more. And, overwhelmingly, people are like ‘I want more, when is the next round, when is the next season.’ So in that way, us being forced to like tell your story in five episodes instead of the luxurious ten that we had last time. And it wasn’t even like a budget thing, it was just like — I’m not supposed to share information like this, I get in trouble when I share information like this — but it really came down to like ‘this is what the algorithm says.’ Like everything would have worked out better if you only got five episodes and that was it.”

It seems that algorithms played a significant role in determining the number of episodes that Masters of the Universe: Revolution received compared to its predecessor, Revelation.

More and more, in the age of streaming, numbers determine not only how many seasons you get but also the number of episodes you have to tell your story. Hopefully, with Masters of the Universe: Revolution receiving a much better reception than its predecessor, the next installment of He-Man will have even more episodes to narrate the grand adventures of the epic warrior from Eternia.

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