The Acolyte Reveals Its True Villain…The Disney+ Episode Format What a comeback that was. I previously reviewed the first 5 episodes of the Acolyte when they came out here . The TL;DR is that I had very mixed feelings about the first half of the season. The concept was interesting, the lore was intriguing, but the writing was very choppy and inconsistent. After finishing the last three episodes of the season, which were excellent, I think I know why: In a sentence, short episode runtimes combined with the “prove you deserve a second season” mentality.  You basically have to tell your whole story as a standalone season in case you don't get renewed while also not cramming so much in that it ends up being so poorly received that it doesn't get a sequel. It's an impossible ask. If you get another season it's probably at the cost of your story. This is not a novel criticism either. This has been raised as an issue since Disney began parceling out the Marvel Cinematic Univer