Sesame Workshop is working on a creative makeover for its flagship series. Starting with season 56, which is due out in 2025, Sesame Street will move the show away from its current magazine-style format—featuring a variety of short segments within a 30-minute episode—to try out a more narrative-driven approach that’s built around two 11-minute stories. 

“Kids love a little bit of peril and they love having emotional stakes, but in nine minutes, it’s kind of hard to dive into those things really effectively,” according to EVP and chief creative development and production officer Kay Wilson Stallings in an interview with THR. Sesame Street‘s new structure will make it feel more like a traditional TV series, with a stronger focus on character moments. 

A new 2D-animated bridge will also appear between the two live-action segments. This “Tales From 123” concept explores the lives of residents in the show’s iconic brownstone apartment, and Wilson Stallings feels that it has spin-off series potential. 

And the final change is a musical one—every episode in season 56 will feature a signature song and moments where the characters turn to the camera to address viewers.

This is not the first time Sesame Workshop has tinkered with the format of its longest-running kids series. Most notably, 1998 saw the addition of a 15-minute “Elmo’s World” segment that was designed to appeal to toddlers. And more recently, the length of Sesame Street eps was chopped in half from an hour to 30 minutes in 2016, along with an intentional reduction in the use of parent-targeted pop culture references.

Sesame Street is just days away from the November 9 rollout of its 54th season on Max—which figures into a deal with WBD that’s scheduled to end after season 55 runs next year. It’s not known yet whether Sesame Workshop will renew the contract or seek a new home for its landmark show in time for the launch of season 56.