Steven Universe was recently confirmed to have 5 seasons and to come back in the summer… to finish season 3. “Wait What?” you ask, “I thought we were still in Season 2.” Well it’s a long story, and it starts before SU.

Now there are 5 usual tv show season lengths: 10 half hours (example: most adult swim shows), 13 half hours (example: a good majority of tv shows), 20 half hours (examples: Regular Show, Most modern Disney Shows, Broadcast Network Shows that use the “front 13/back 9” production setup), 26 half hours (examples are relevant to this post), and 65 half hours (shows made for syndication, doesn’t really happen that much anymore). For CN, shows usually used either 13 half hours or 20. In Adventure Time’s case, it was 13 half hours (26 11 minute episodes). The first 4 seasons were that length, and season 5 was also going to be that length. Then the AT crew got the idea to double the season and have a 4-parter TV Movie in the middle. the 4 parter didn’t end up getting made, but the season remained double length, which seems to be what triggered CN to look at things a little differently.

When Uncle Grandpa, Steven Universe, and Clarence were originally greenlit back in like mid 2012, their respective Season 1’s were going to be 13 half hours. Presumably before UG premiered, the seasons were extended to 26 half hours, presumably to match with AT Season 5. Meanwhile, a show that was Greenlit afterwards (We Bare Bears) was to have a Season 1 of 26 half hours from the get go.

Something changed at CN for some reason. Steven’s Birthday (which is the 79th episode in production order) is labeled as Season 3 on CN’s Website. Meanwhile, WBB season 1 has been split in two, with the episodes up to Hibernation being season 1 (26 episodes if you count the shorts), and Charlie Ball onwards being season 2.

So (counting Say Uncle as a season 2 episode because that’s where it is production wise and counting the shorts as an episode because they took up an episode production number) SU’s seasons are:

Season 1A (originally Season 1): Gem Glow to Ocean Gem (13 half hours)

Season 1B: House Guest to Jail Break (13 half hours)

Season 2 (originally the first half of Season 2): Full Disclosure to Message Recieved (13 half hours)

Season 3 (originally the second half of Season 2): Log Date 7 15 2 to episode 104 (13 half hours)

Season 4 (originally the first half of Season 3): Episode 105 to episode 130 (13 half hours)

Season 5 (originally the second half of Season 3): Episode 131 to episode 156 (13 half hours)