Some of the cycles on mine take over 3 hours yet it's super efficient, the door does open straight away though and the display tells you how long there is to wait. Bet it would do loads of stuff if I ever actually read the manual.
I have a Bosch, don't know about other washing machine cycles.
If I want to cut the spin time, I turn the machine off - although the timer will not turn off. I then programme the machine to 'drain'. Drain takes just one minute.