Why do TV series seem to have a different director for each episode?

[terentii]

@Mahaloth

The short answer to your question is: Production is week to week and they need directors prepping forthcoming episodes while the current one is being made.

This has really become the case since X-files, which more or less made a 40 minute movie 20+ times per year. Their directors were a huge part of this.

At the other end of the spectrum are shows like Three’s Company, which varied so little in content and style that my cat could have directed it!

[amarinth]

Schedule -
Even in multi-cam shows, it is quite difficult (often to the point of being infeasible) for a traditional US network tv show (which tends to produce 1 show/week) to have someone direct back-to-back shows. It’s just simply that most hour-long shows take longer than a week to direct.

For some of the newer, short season shows (or streaming shows) with a different filming and production schedule, things are often different.

I used to read http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/ - who would talk about the writing & directing process for tv shows including the production and shooting schedules. Directing a TV show is different than directing a movie - but it isn’t the nothing that some of the above posts seem to think.