Why only make McMafia eight episodes?

McMafia new tonight on the BBC? Wouldn’t that be a great sight to see? We certainly wish that we had more of James Norton and the rest of the cast, given that this series may be to date one of the most underrated series of 2018. Norton should be an Emmy candidate for limited series when it premieres on AMC later this year; you never know how series are going to catch fire here in the States, so with the right marketing there’s a chance it ends up being a big hit stateside. It probably doesn’t have the same instant accessibility as some other series, though, if for no other reason than that it doesn’t have the star power going for it that The Night Manager did. Almost right away, that series had the benefit of familiar faces like Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. Norton is getting there in the States, especially for those who enjoyed Grantchester on Masterpiece, but he’s not quite there just yet.

As for why there’s no McMafia on the air tonight, there are two simple reasons.

1. The BAFTA Film Awards are on tonight – This has been planned out for a while and we imagine that the ratings will be pretty huge. While entertainment is far more saturated than it used to be, the presence of the Royal Family plus many of television’s top stars make this a series institution.

2. There are only eight episodes in McMafia – Why so few? Well, this is a compact series telling a very specific, compact story that didn’t need any more time. Eight episodes is actually about average for a British drama series — it’s the same length, minus the Christmas Special, of a show like Victoria, Call the Midwife, or Downton Abbey. It just feels so much shorter in the case of McMafia thanks to the breakneck speed in which most of the first season ran at. There were so many near-constant twists and turns that there weren’t really all that many opportunities for anyone to catch their breath.

While we do think that this season could’ve been expanded another episode or two to flesh out some of Alex’s relationships and raise the stakes of the finale showdown, we’re not going to begrudge the BBC and their budget for keeping things at this length. We do still think that there’s a chance at a season 2 for a number of different reasons — including some that you can read a little bit more about over at the link here.

Are you bummed out that McMafia is already over, and do you want to see some more of the series in the future? Be sure to share now below!

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