The Ainulindalë was never going to be more than 20 minutes of screentime in a 1 hour opening episode; what the Hosts did was to rework what story they wanted to tell to introduce the Frame. There are some 'short' episodes in Season 1, that still need more work, but that was a symptom of the script team running out of time more than the material not being available. Yes, Michael, you raised the concern that a 13 episode season was too long when we were working on S1Ep8 (which, though an 'invented' sequence, is pivotal to the plot and story we are telling). But it wasn't that we didn't have material - the issue is that people wanted Mairon's fall to be subtle and drawn out, so making progress on that storyline had to be a background thing in a few episodes rather than the central point of a single episode. Whereas the creation of the Dwarves was a stand-alone story. Working that all out structurally was a difficult feat to pull off, and we may not have done it. Same with the Melkor-in-the-Timeless-Halls-centric Episode 3. We're (hopefully) learning pacing as we go. Sure, we *could* have told the Season 1 story in 10 episodes rather than 13. And we could have skipped Season 1 entirely and begun with the Awakening of the elves, who meet the Valar when they go to Valinor, and we'd just get occasional flashbacks of the Season 1 material from time to time.
But we're not actually producing a TV show here; we're discussing the adaptation of a story. And the longer and more drawn out it is, the more opportunities there are for the hosts to discuss different aspects of that story. So, yes, they are always going to make the choice, 'Let's tell this story in the most drawn out way possible.' More episodes and more seasons is good for them, and there's no downside.
But we're not actually producing a TV show here; we're discussing the adaptation of a story. And the longer and more drawn out it is, the more opportunities there are for the hosts to discuss different aspects of that story. So, yes, they are always going to make the choice, 'Let's tell this story in the most drawn out way possible.' More episodes and more seasons is good for them, and there's no downside.
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