The classic US TV format is for hour long with ads dramas with a season running around 20-24 episodes, with comedy shows usually running 30 minutes with ads and a similar size season.
This does nothing but mandate insane amounts of padding, sometimes it seems like a game to see how long they can stretch out nonsense like establishing shots and such. There is just no need for that much time to tell a story. Rarely an episode will actually attempt to actually use the entire hour for storytelling and it is breathtaking, only because you have the other padded episodes to compare to.
It leads to predictable A and B plots where the B plot is total garbage, watch as daring hero must battle through the valley of death without his sword! Oh and also comedy relief sidekick struggles to make oatmeal and learns a valuable lesson about humility on tonights episode!
Comedies in particular seem to benefit from lack of filler. I’ve realized this especially on Adult Swims line up, some shows that were hilarious in small doses just become boring when extended.
Maybe my attention span is declining but I am really coming to prefer both shorter seasons and shorter episodes.