Stuart Fails to Save the Universe won’t follow the typical streaming comedy format when it premieres later this month. According to Deadline, the upcoming HBO Max series from Chuck Lorre (The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men), Bill Prady (The Big Bang Theory, Gilmore Girls), and Zak Penn (Ready Player One, Free Guy) will feature episodes that are noticeably shorter than most streaming comedies.

While many streaming sitcoms run between 25 and 35 minutes, the show’s ten-episode first season includes installments ranging from just 15 to 25 minutes. Season one will consist of one 15-minute episode, four episodes running 18 minutes each, and the remaining episodes running 20, 21, 22, 24, and 25 minutes each.

Lorre said the creative team intentionally kept the episodes short because they believed each story was complete without adding extra material. “No, no. We just felt that we’d successfully told the story, and to add would be padding, and padding, generally, is a hammock between important scenes, and why would we do that if there’s no real reason,” Lorre told Deadline.

He also noted that streaming allows creators to move beyond the traditional 22-minute broadcast format, saying the goal was to make “the best show we can” without unnecessarily extending episodes.

Earlier this summer, mxdwn covered the release of the show’s full trailer, which gave fans a closer look at the multiverse adventure awaiting Stuart Bloom and previewed the series’ sci-fi direction. The trailer also highlighted how the spinoff moves beyond the original sitcom format by sending familiar characters into alternate realities, making the shorter episode lengths another way the creative team is breaking from convention.

Deadline notes the series also embraces a serialized format, with each episode ending as the characters arrive in a new alternate reality that sets up the following week’s installment. Lorre said the structure naturally became a way to tease the next episode, while Prady explained the idea grew from wanting each chapter to end with the feeling that “Everything’s all right. Oh wait, no, it isn’t.”

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe marks Lorre’s third single-camera streaming comedy following The Kominsky Method and Bookie. The new series premieres on HBO Max on July 23 with new episodes releasing weekly.