Starz Network Happy With Showrunners Shortening 'American Gods' First Season

Telling the story of ex-convict Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), 'American Gods' chronicles the journey he takes alongside the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), who hires him whilst trying to bring together the old gods of America for an impending war against new gods. It sounds like a tired concept, but the original novel by Neil Gaiman was such a huge success following its 2001 debut, that showrunners Michael Green and Bryan Fuller have stepped in to bring it to life on US network Starz.

Discovering that his wife Laura Moon (Emily Browning) has died, Shadow is released even earlier than expected from prison, and has nothing left to lose when he accepts a job with Mr. Wednesday. Though he's not entirely sure what that entails from the get-go, it doesn't take long for him to get pulled into a world he didn't even realise existed.

"What was refreshing for us, or at least helpful, was that when we cut both Episodes 3 and 4 in half and sewed the best parts together, we realised that we were dropping an episode," Fuller explained to Collider.

"But it was also returning to an earlier iteration of the structure of the season that we essentially had plotted out in nine episodes, and then stretched Episode 3 into two episodes and ultimately found that our first instincts were correct, so we ended up removing the things that we added, late in the game, to accomplish another episode."

He added of the companies behind the series: "Fortunately, we had the support of the studio and the network to tell the best version of the story, in as many episodes as we needed to tell that story."

It's a brave move by Starz. Many other television studios would have demanded a longer run for such a huge series' debut, but in allowing the creators behind the show to do what they like when it comes to season length, they've refused to set out boundaries and markers for the series. This is when a showrunner's creative juices are really allowed to flow freely.

That's never been more apparant in a TV series, with the show's first episode clearly branching away from the norm we see on television, allowing viewers a different sort of escapism.

More: 'American Gods' Showrunners Will Offer Equal Nudity

'American Gods' premiered last night (April 30) on Starz in the US, with new episodes coming to Amazon Prime Video in the UK each Monday thereafter.