The early days of Marvel TV were decidedly more old-fashioned than its current offerings. WandaVision harkened back to television’s past, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier echoed the peak of MCU movies, and Loki literally traveled back in time as Mobius, Sylvie, and the infamous trickster god attempted to solve mysterious attacks on the Sacred Timeline. Now, Loki Season 2 is adopting an old-fashioned TV practice, and it has the runtimes to show for it.
Prolific runtime leaker @Cryptic4KQual, who’s correctly predicted the length of every Ahsoka episode so far, claims the first two episodes of Loki are 45 minutes and 49 minutes, including the five-minute long Disney+ credit sequence.
That’s an interesting tidbit given a recent change in Loki’s release date. Ahsoka, which ends just a few days after Loki’s Season 2 premiere, bucked streaming precedent by moving its release time to 6 p.m. PST/9 p.m. EST, embracing primetime instead of requiring an all-nighter to watch immediately. The move must have been a success, because Disney+ just bumped Loki Season 2’s premiere up six hours to copy the model.
It’s clear these shows are meant to compete with broadcast television, and these runtimes also signal a return to classic TV, as both Episodes 1 and 2 are about how long a broadcast drama would run once the commercials are trimmed. Hopefully, this remains constant throughout the series, and we won’t have to deal with rapidly fluctuating runtimes.
Unlike Ahsoka, Loki Season 2 won’t get a two-episode premiere, so you’ll only get one dose of time-travel shenanigans on October 5. But on the plus side, you won’t have to deprive yourself of sleep to watch it.
