# Have there been any weekly scripted TV show with a 52 week season? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [July 3, 2022, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335 "2022-07-03T05:47:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/1 "2022-07-03T05:47:00Z")
I made a comment to a friend that Disney Plus has effectively released a single TV show called “Marvel” that has one episode a week for the next 5 years. Like, sure they brand it as a bunch of different shows but it’s effectively meant to be watched as one continuous segment by the same audience week to week with zero breaks. It made me wonder if anyone had done anything comparable to this in the past. Like, I know there are news/panel shows etc. that run weekly continuously, and there are soap operas that air daily and also don’t take breaks, but has there ever been anything that is run like a conventional scripted weekly TV show, but instead of 13 or 24 episodes a season, they produce 52 episodes a season and air them weekly and there is no break from Season N to Season N+1? I’m doubtful that such shows have been done in the US but are there other countries that do TV like this? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/2 "2022-07-03T06:15:00Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > I made a comment to a friend that Disney Plus has effectively released a single TV show called “Marvel” that has one episode a week for the next 5 years. Like, sure they brand it as a bunch of different shows but it’s effectively meant to be watched as one continuous segment by the same audience week to week with zero breaks. Except that there have been gaps between the Marvel stories, so it isn’t a continuous 52 week season. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/3 "2022-07-03T06:22:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Except that there have been gaps between the Marvel stories, so it isn’t a continuous 52 week season. Ah yes, [you’re right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_television_series#Marvel_Studios). I remember seeing an infographic when the Disney Marvel shows were announced where they were back to back or only had a week gap in between. It appears COVID production delays have introduced gaps in the schedule but I believe the intention was originally for there to never be a gap. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/4 "2022-07-03T06:24:01Z")
Monday Night Raw probably meets the criteria, for certain values of “scripted”. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/5 "2022-07-03T06:26:02Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Monday Night Raw probably meets the criteria, for certain values of “scripted”. An interesting direction to go in but by “conventional scripted show”, I mean something where there is a script and multiple takes which gets put into an edit and broadcast some weeks later, not an improvisational show with a loose script which is considerably easier to pull off in a week to week format. ---
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/6 "2022-07-03T06:29:46Z")
I’m not sure if they’re weekly or daily, but Chinese, Korean and Japanese [TV have] series that run 160+ episodes. Edit: I reread the OP and the subject is scripted shows. So _Running Man_, _Infinite Challenge_ and _The Lawrence Welk Show_ don’t count. NHK Japan has Taiga Dramas which usually run for a full year. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga\_drama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga_drama) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/7 "2022-07-03T06:42:14Z")
> [@Didi44](#): > > NHK Japan has Taiga Dramas which usually run for a full year. [Taiga drama - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga_drama) I checked and the do tend to run 52 straight episodes per year. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/8 "2022-07-03T07:09:22Z")
The first season of _The Lone Ranger_ ran for 52 episodes in 1949. A new one every week, no reruns. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/9 "2022-07-03T07:11:28Z")
The British soap [Coronation Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_Street#United_Kingdom) which has been continuously broadcast since 1960 has, at the moment , 10,678 aired episodes. It is on several times a week, every week and has been for decades I believe. Here is a list of the hundred of episodes in 2021: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053494/episodes?year=2021](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053494/episodes?year=2021) ---
**Author:** ![CardboardBoxx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardboardboxx/32/7079_2.png) [@CardboardBoxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CardboardBoxx)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/10 "2022-07-03T09:11:51Z")
Soap opera was right there in the OP as an exclusion, (and yes I know Corrie is 3 times a week rather than daily, but the intent was obvious) ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/11 "2022-07-03T09:40:28Z")
In the same vein, a new episode of the German soap opera [Lindenstraße](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindenstra%C3%9Fe) was broadcast every Sunday between 1985 and 2020. EDIT: Hmm, maybe I misunderstood the OP. I thought the exclusion was specifically daily soaps, with the question being for something broadcast on a weekly basis. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/12 "2022-07-03T11:42:09Z")
The Adam West _Batman_ had an interesting schedule. Season 1 had 34 half-hour episodes running twice a week from Jan to May 1966. Season 2 started in Sep and ran to March 1967, again, twice a week. It had approximately 60 episodes run in 1966 although not one a week. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/13 "2022-07-04T01:31:17Z")
> [@CardboardBoxx](#): > > Soap opera was right there in the OP as an exclusion, (and yes I know Corrie is 3 times a week rather than daily, but the intent was obvious) Does **The Bill** count as a soap opera or is it a regular (half hour) cop show? It aired 104 episodes in 1989, for instance. > **[The Bill (series 5)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bill_(series_5))** > > The fifth series of The Bill, a British television drama, consisted of 104 episodes, broadcast between 3 January – 28 December 1989. The series was first released on DVD as part of the Collection 3 and Collection 4 DVD boxsets in Australia, made available on 8 August – 7 November 2007, respectively. The first four episodes of the series were later issued on DVD in the United Kingdom, under the title Volume 4, on 15 March 2010. The next thirteen episodes of series 5 were released on DVD in the ... ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/14 "2022-07-04T12:21:10Z")
_Captain Video_ was a daily show with 52-week seasons. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/15 "2022-07-04T13:12:33Z")
I was going to suggest **The Bill** as well. That 1989 season (or maybe I should say _series_, since it’s British) wasn’t even the most it ever did. Its longest series was series 12, airing in 1996, which consisted of 156 episodes. The show had multiple series with more than 100 episodes, and regularly aired several times per week from January through December. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/16 "2022-07-04T13:14:53Z")
The other thing that makes “Marvel” multiple shows is that most of the regular cast and the setting changes every time the title changes. Which makes it a lot easier to film them in parallel, and give the folks making it (both cast and crew) some time off. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/17 "2022-07-04T15:41:33Z")
In the early days, **Doctor Who** came pretty close. The first season had 42 weekly episodes, running from November 1963 to September 1964. Season three had 45 episodes. A far cry from the 14 per year in Sylvester McCoy’s run and the ten or fewer we got while Jodie Whittaker was in the role. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/18 "2022-07-04T18:04:26Z")
The early science-fiction series _Space Patrol_ ran weekly for three straight years, 1951, 1952, and 1953, and ran into 1954 as well. The episode list for its competitor, _Captain Video and His Video Rangers_, is fragmented. It ran six days a week for four years and then five days a week for its last season but no site I checked gave a numbered listing or any firm indication of how many episodes it totaled. Although it was daily, it operated more like early _Doctor Who_ than a soap opera, with four or five episodes making up a complete arc, then starting anew. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/19 "2022-07-04T18:09:00Z")
If close is good enough to be interesting, _[Anger Management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger_Management_(TV_series))_ (which I never watched) _might_ count. It had an unusual arrangement in which if the first ten-episode order was successful enough, the network would pick it up for a further ninety episodes, which aired over two years, or about 45 episodes each year, though some nights more than one episode aired. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335/20 "2022-07-04T18:45:31Z")
Just the example I was going to mention. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-weekly-scripted-tv-show-with-a-52-week-season/967335.md?page=2)