It multiplies a show's episode count by its typical episode length, then divides by the hours you plan to watch per day. Search for a show to use its real numbers from The Movie Database, or type your own episodes and minutes. Add more than one show to see the total for a whole queue.
Free tool
Binge calculator
How long does it take to watch the whole thing? Pick a show, set your pace, and get the answer in hours, evenings, and weekends. Stack a few to plan the season.
Or type your own numbers
How much you'll watch a day
Your queue
Nothing yet. Search for a show above and it lands here with its real episode count.
0 hours
0days at 2 hours a day
0evenings of 2 hours
0weekends of 8 hours a day
The math
Why a season is longer than it looks
A "quick" ten-episode season of hour-long drama is ten hours, which is a full working day and a bit. A nine-season network sitcom with 22-minute episodes runs well past a hundred hours, and the prestige dramas with 70-minute finales add up faster than their episode counts suggest. The calculator turns episode counts and episode lengths into something you can plan around: how many evenings, how many weekends, and roughly when you'd finish at the pace you can keep.
Two habits make the number more useful. Add the show you're mid-way through and then subtract what you've seen, and stack the two or three shows you keep meaning to start so you can see whether the autumn actually has room for all of them. If it doesn't, the shorter one wins, and the best limited series are the place to look for something you can finish in a weekend.
Limelight is where the queue lives when you're not at a calculator. Save the shows to your Watchlist, see the latest episodes on each title, and get a notification when a new one airs, so a season you started in March does not turn into a season you abandoned in May. It is a free download for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Still deciding what goes in the queue? The What to watch quiz turns six questions into three picks, and the random movie picker hands you one title at a time, including a random TV show when a series is what you want.
Questions
About the binge calculator
A ten-episode season of hour-long drama is about 10 hours, so a single evening a week for five weeks, or one long weekend. A nine-season network sitcom like The Office runs about 140 hours, which is two months at two hours a night.
The calculator uses each show's typical episode length from The Movie Database. Finales, specials, and streaming shows with uneven episode lengths can run longer or shorter, so treat the total as a close estimate rather than a timetable.
Yes. Search for movies as well as shows and add each one to the queue. The total adds their runtimes together, so a franchise marathon or a director's whole filmography gets the same hours-and-days answer.
Keep reading
Something to put in the queue
Finish the shows you start
Limelight keeps your watchlist, shows the latest episodes, and tells you the day a new one airs. Free on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, privacy focused with no ads.
