‘Succession’ Team Debated Splitting Final Season Into Two Parts With Up to 16 Episodes, but That Wasn’t the ‘Muscular Way to Go Out’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director In the introduction for the upcoming book “Succession: Season Four: The Complete Scripts” (via Vulture), series creator Jesse Armstrong reveals a debate occurred on how to end the Emmy-winning HBO drama.

The team could write one final season consisting of 10 episodes (the show’s first two seasons had that episode count, while Season 3 consisted of nine episodes), or follow in the footsteps of “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” by having an increased episode count and splitting up the final season into two parts.

The latter plan would’ve included six to eight episodes in each part, bringing the final seasons up to 12 to 16 episodes. “My sense was that we should do one last full-fat season rather than stretch it out,” Armstrong writes. “But I was wary of saying good-bye too fast to all the relationships and opportunities, of leaving creative money on the table, regretting all the subplots that would go unwritten, the jokes left untold.” Armstrong called together a “little committee on whether to whack the show” in order to pick what plan the show should do.

Some staffers said the series should just have two entirely new seasons, ending after a fifth. Executive producer and writer Lucy Prebble made the most convincing argument: “We could, if we wanted, keep going with a show that became increasingly rangy and fun — a climbing plant grown leggy but still throwing off beautiful blooms now and then.