Tom Ellis has a lot to be excited for right now. After a devastating few days in which the lead Lucifer actor learned his Fox series was cancelled, Ellis was at the heart of a campaign to help the series find a new home. The fans rallied around the cast, and not only was the show picked up for Season 4, it was picked up by the super popular streaming service Netflix. There are plenty of reasons to be excited for the new series that is coming, but Ellis revealed he's especially pumped the show is heading to the streaming service instead of another network because of the way the show will be structured moving forward. He said:
I'm excited about the fact that we are 10 episodes now as opposed to 22, which means we can get right down to the storytelling, and every episode will count. From my point of view as an actor, that's great.
Over the past several years as cable, streaming services and subscription cable networks have begun producing more original TV programs, the episode counts for those shows have often dropped down to 13, 10 or even eight episodes. At the outset, this may not seem to be a good thing, as fewer episodes means less work and a smaller paycheck for the actors and staff involved (as well as less content for audiences to consume). However, from a creative standpoint, fewer episodes is often ideal, and Tom Ellis explained to EW that he's happy as a clam the show will get 10 episodes next season. In his case, it also likely helps that Lucifer was already canceled once. Any additional episodes probably seem like bonus at this point.
With 10 episodes, Lucifer will produce a series that is the same length as a few other shows on the subscription streaming service, like Mindhunter and Making a Murderer. We'll have to wait and see whether or not a fifth season might eventually be in the cards, but with the 10-episode count in mind, I'd also like to point out the Lucifer creative team has been busy sharing scripts on social media. Most recently the writers shared a look at the third episode script, which means the new season of the series is nearly a third of the way through production already.
How the production timeline relates to when the series actually makes a return to television remains a gigantic question mark, and Netflix sometimes takes its sweet time before announcing when a new show or project will hit the airwaves. Of course, we'll be sure to keep you posted along the way and if you'd like to see what is headed to the streaming service in the meantime, you can take a look at the full Netflix originals schedule.
