I was lucky enough to have somehow avoided watching the pilot episode on Youtube until like a month ago, so I got to basically skip the four years of anticipation most fans went through leading up to the production of a full season. But now it’s airing, and I’m curious if anyone else here has been watching as well.

Just got through watching the latest two episodes, and I’ve really been enjoying Hazbin Hotel overall. The songs have all been bangers so far, and the characters are interesting and developed with care. The writers have managed to do some great exploration of the main premise concerning the afterlives of sinners in hell without falling into the traps of making a show that is either excessively upsetting and grimdark nor excessively offensive and raunchy.

My only real problem with these new episodes is the same problem most other people seem to have online regarding the pacing. I think it’s clear Hazbin Hotel’s short episode runtimes and season lengths are probably too claustrophobic for the kind of story the writers are trying to tell. There’s a bit of an ensemble cast thing going on, and there are a ton of less important recurring side characters. Seasons comprised of just eight episodes that are each only 24 minutes long will inevitably mean the main hotel crew will receive heavy prioritization over other characters. And despite that, the short seasons still mean even the main character arcs need to happen on shorter timelines, introducing a real risk they’ll feel unearned. So the pacing can feel far too quick at times. I think they should have at minimum stuck with the 30 minute runtime the pilot had. Plus had they done that, it would have opened up the possibility of songs longer than three or so minutes.

But overall I think it looks like the show is doing very well, at least according to Amazon’s stats (I pirated it lol), so it’s my hope that longer seasons and longer episodes are on the table for season two now that it’s clear the show won’t flop.