The Television Season

I remember a time when television shows followed a traditional season of new episodes. There was a one or two week span in September when stations would premiere a newly anticipated season of episodes of various shows. I'm sure there were others like me who spent a large chunk of the summer anxiously waiting for the new season to arrive. I remember also that a show ran every week, keeping viewers in suspense only for an appropriate seven days. After a certain number of episodes, the season would end in a cliff-hanger finale and summer would again bring its wait.

In recent years, I've noticed that television only partially follows this formula. Yes, there are premieres. Yes, there are episodes each week. Yes, there are cliff-hanger finales. However, it seems that some shows' seasons have a lot of interruptions.

Take for example, two of my favorite shows on ABC: Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. It seems that I now have to wait four weeks for new episodes to air. Then I imagine, there will be four or five new episodes in consecutive weeks before the big finale and hiatus for the summer. I find myself thinking that this type of set up is more common lately. Sure, there's always been a week off for things like Christmas or the SuperBowl or March Madness or the occassional awards show. But a whole month? That didn't seem common until recently.

Now it seems shows take these mid-season hiatuses, two weeks here or four weeks there. New shows are airing in September, November, January, March... whenever. Really, it makes the whole "season" hard to follow.

I like the frequent and consecutive season. I like the seven-day wait. I don't like the extended hiatus. I mean, there's only so much wasted air space one can take.