What ever happened to the idea of a set TV season? Remember when we were growing up? New shows and episodes premiered in the fall, ran through May with very few nights of repeats and then the season ended just as you were getting out of school and the repeats were confined to the summer. It was a nice system to get out and enjoy the weather with the peace of mind that you weren't going to miss anything which would leave you out of the water cooler discussion the next day. Now shows begin and end pretty much whenever they want and with no rhyme or reason. Also, seasons can consist of twenty episodes or they can be six 15-minute "mini-sodes" that will have to tide you over until the show actually begins in mid-October.
This is especially prevalent on cable networks. The season premiere of South Park is tomorrow night, while FX's new show Justified begins tonight. Apparently, a random Tuesday in March is a fine time to launch new shows. USA network, which has started to produce a lot of it's own programming, appears to just want to put shows out in five-show bursts then declare that the "winter season." You'll then get 6 more in June for the "summer season" and a special two episode storyline randomly in October which will be a "special event." No idea if that would start season two or wrap-up season one. [Sidebar: Here's a quick review of almost every show they put out, "Not bad if there is nothing else on." None of them are great to watch one at a time, but seem better when they do a mini-marathon on a rainy Sunday.]
Oh, and forget the idea of an extended run of new episodes. I used to really enjoy the show Bones, but after a while I just had to give up. The season started in September, was interrupted after a week for the baseball playoffs, came back for two episodes, gone for the holidays, back for three episodes and has since been preempted or in re-runs the last two months because of either the Olympics or Fox's feeling that we need 18 hours of American Idol a week. The schedule was driving me crazy and I just couldn't take it anymore. At this point I plan to give up even looking for new episodes and just buying the complete season when it comes out on DVD.
That is where I think we'll eventually head. Either we'll get to the point that you can just buy a show's complete season immediately or they'll start to offer alternate channels that you can flip over to and watch the thing you initially wanted when your program is preempted by something you can't stand. We've enter an on-Demand world and TV shows are going to have to catch up or be passed by something which offers the viewer more control. In the mean time I'll have to remember to set my DVR to record the season finale of that show that premiered last week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment