Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Tulsa King season 3.Taylor Sheridan’s Tulsa King season 3 has run into a unique problem with the runtimes of its episodes. Tulsa King season 3 has been great so far. The entire cast of Tulsa King is getting more involved than ever before, Dwight’s fight against Jeremiah Dunmire is interesting and suspenseful, and both Tulsa King season 4 and the NOLA King spinoff show have already been confirmed.

As Tulsa King season 3 continues to succeed, however, a problem is starting to become more and more apparent. Simply put, Tulsa King has a runtime problem, and though it has been there since the beginning, it’s the worst it has ever been in season 3. What makes it all worse is that Tulsa King had just solved a different problem many streaming shows face.

Tulsa King Solved The Streaming Problem Of Having Delays Between Seasons

Tulsa King is something of a rare gem in the streaming landscape. Many other streaming shows take years off between seasons, for a wide variety of reasons. It can often be hard to manage the schedules of A-list stars, the higher production quality of modern shows means filming and editing take longer, and VFX and CGI demands are at an all-time high, which means post-production takes longer than ever before.

Tulsa King actually suffered from the same problem. It took nearly two full years for Tulsa King season 2 to premiere after the first season debuted in 2022. What makes Tulsa King different from other streaming shows is that it solved that problem. Tulsa King season 3 came out almost exactly a year after season 2 premiered, and as previously mentioned, season 4 is already underway.

That’s no small achievement for a streaming show. With shows like Severance and Stranger Things taking upwards of three years between seasons, Tulsa King has an advantage in how many viewers it can retain in the offseason. Its quick turnaround time has been a huge advantage for Tulsa King, but it hasn’t been enough to solve the issue with the show’s episode runtimes.

Tulsa King Seasons Come Out Faster, But They Have Shorter Episodes

Though Tulsa King was able to solve the problem of having long waits between seasons, that solution didn’t apply to a different issue. Typically, streaming shows like Tulsa King are about 50 minutes to an hour long per episode. Some shows, like Stranger Things, have specific episodes that go well beyond that and are basically as long as movies. Tulsa King, however, has far shorter episodes than other shows.

Though it’s supposed to be an hour-long show, the average episode of Tulsa King is less than 40 minutes long. There have only been two episodes that have been 47 minutes long, but there have been six episodes that were 36 minutes or less. Those incredibly low runtimes mean that instead of each season of Tulsa King being about 10 hours of story, it’s actually not even seven hours long, and that’s including the intro, credits, and recaps.

Viewers may not have to wait as long for new seasons of Tulsa King to come out, but they also don’t get as much show in each season. Every season of Tulsa King is basically seven episodes split up into 10, which is bad in itself. However, Tulsa King also has an issue with having too many plots going at the same time and not having enough time to fully develop them. These short runtimes only make that problem worse.

For example, Tulsa King season 3 had 11 distinct plotlines. With just seven hours to develop those stories, however, many of them felt under-baked and haphazard. Tulsa King season 3 desperately needed a few more hours to spend on its various stories, but its short episode runtimes prevented that from happening. For example, Bodhi’s beef with Art was completely abandoned halfway through the season to make room for other stories.

Tulsa King‘s short runtimes are actively detracting from the show. Plots get wrapped up too easily, story developments feel forced and inorganic, and the entire show seems to lack any sort of focus beyond its main story. I really appreciate that new seasons of Tulsa King come out so quickly, but I wish there was more meat in each season.

Release Date

November 13, 2022

Network

Paramount+

Showrunner

Dave Erickson, Terence Winter

Directors

Allen Coulter, Benjamin Semanoff, David Semel, Guy Ferland, Joshua Marston, Kevin Dowling, Lodge Kerrigan, Jim McKay

Writers

Joseph Riccobene, David Flebotte, William Schmidt, Taylor Elmore, Tom Sierchio, Regina Corrado, Stephen Scaia, Terence Winter