Comments on: Is it time to rethink the TV ‘season’ concept?

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:42:55 +0000

I agree, i know it probably makes sense from a marketing perspective, but i think it upsets a bunch of viewers, i mean they are blackmailed to watch bad programming in order to wait for their favorite shows to come on.

By: Johnny Cosmo

Johnny Cosmo — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:11:46 +0000

I’d hate to see all my favorite TV shows have their finales stretch over such an extended period of time while I had to endure long absences, but I do agree in principle that the conventional season is less relevant. Already we have series premiering during the summer and one only has to look at The Guild or Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog to see that we will happily consume quality programming whenever it is launched.

By: John R

John R — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:59:41 +0000

I agree that season labelling seems to be more irrelevant than ever. Especially if you take into account the US / UK divide.

Over here – it’s not uncommon to have show seasons completely screwed up for DVD releases (Family Guy, anyone?). This BSG hiatus has definitely been a complete season break – even regarding the story line.

The problem ultimately comes down to the fact that US shows have a nasty habit of putting hiatuses(?) into seasons that simply shouldn’t be there. By constantly breaking up the flow of a season and putting reruns in their place, viewers inevitably lose interest.

When a show breaks up for 3 weeks on TV – I think that it’s a lot to ask for the casual viewer to religiously watch the programme. Especially when you only took the time in the week because you started to enjoy it.

Just seems crazy to me.

By: Weiss

Weiss — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:20:03 +0000

This is also the case with the latest season of Nip Tuck.

I just don’t care what they call the seasons anymore…

By: Jamahl Epsicokhan

Jamahl Epsicokhan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:31:23 +0000

BSG was not canceled. According to Ron Moore, he himself made the call to end the show after talking with the network. The ratings for BSG were in a fairly constant slide, and there was a question as to how long Sci Fi wanted it to cultivate it, and maybe that factored into Moore’s decision, but that’s not the same thing as “canceled.”

By: Stef

Stef — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:13:30 +0000

@ Lou: BSG has been cancelled? I thought they had just written the end of it rather then being cancelled?

By: Brad

Brad — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:39:24 +0000

My only issue is how much more they ask us to pay for seasons 2 and 4 over 1 and 3. If the price for the 4.0 box set were $30 (or less!), I wouldn’t mind at all. However, I dislike being so blatantly milked.

By: Lou

Lou — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:15:06 +0000

It’s ironic that SF is cancelling BSG because of no ratings growth, which is at least partially attributable to the way they schedule the series. My interest is so low that I have not yet watched the last two episodes of Season 4.0 yet.

Another example of cable scheduling idiocy is Entourage. They just finished “Season 5″ consisting of 13 episodes, a grand total of 6.5 hours of programming. Now they are gone unitl who knows when again.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:00:36 +0000

You crazy Yanks. ;o)

Never got the whole season split thing. But then in the UK most series only get between 6 and 12 episodes anyway.
We usually get stuff later from the US so get to watch it uninterupted, CSI for example. There will be a split with Heroes however as we get that a week afterwards. Not so bad on that front as it is split into volumes.

By: Dimitris Kiminas

Dimitris Kiminas — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:08:47 +0000

@ Jamie

Yes, BABYLON 5 was always ahead of its time:

SEASON 1: SIGNS & PORTENTS
SEASON 2: THE COMING OF SHADOWS
SEASON 3: POINT OF ON RETURN
SEASON 4: NO SURRENDER, NO RETREAT
SEASON 5: THE WHEEL OF FIRE

I hope Jamahl will find the time to watch it sometime.

By: Stef

Stef — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:50:04 +0000

Does part of the problem lay with the crazy way the shows are made in the US? They make 12 episodes, and if that works out well, they make another 12, for a total of 24, with a huge gap in the middle, and then call it a season. That is seriously odd.

Remember the first season of 24? They made 12 episodes initially (thus destroying the concept of 24) and the storyline was wrapped up in the first 12 hours. Then the second half of the season was a new storyline with a new set of bad guys. And they still maintain this is a continuation?

What annoys me the most about this structure is the way that when you get to that episode 12 (or 11 if they are doing a 22 show season), it is kind of like the final episode because they don’t know if the show is every returning. Sometimes this is mini-cliffhangers, sometimes it is “We’re all friends now, we all love each other, what a happy ending!!!”

And of course, the 12 episode half-season format means the DVD prices for 6.1 of CSI: New Hampshire or whatever, are super high over here in the UK.

By: Destructor

Destructor — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:30:42 +0000

Hi Jammer,

I’d love to hear your final thoughts on ‘The Sheild’, now that it has wrapped.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:50:57 +0000

Think of it as a way to accommodate your review timeframe

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:41:16 +0000

The concept of a season is so skewed now because of the writers strike and ratings wars which take higher priority in the studio’s mindframe than any silly concept of story structure.

I think the entire idea should be scrapped, especially for serial shows like BSG, Sopranos. Instead DVDs should be grouped by storytelling bookends, or acts. A prime example of this would be Babylon 5 that, although stuck to a seasonal structure, nevertheless gave each season a predetermined outline that worked as a ‘chapter’. Each was given its own title, as opposed the mundane ‘Season 1, 2 etc.’.

When it comes for stand alone shows like The Simpsons or simple sitcoms however, the arbitrary ‘season’ grouping works, simply as a way to bundle them all together.

Hmm. Good article, enjoyed reading it and it got me thinking on the issue too.

By: Random Man

Random Man — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:22:29 +0000

Good points, with I completely agree. It would make things easier if they either A) ran the whole season in a single chunk, or B) simply labelled each distantly spaced grouping of episodes as a separate season.

On the DVD issue: it does seem to make story sense to simply label the disparate halves of season 4 as seasons 4 and 5 – the first half ended on what amounts to a season ending cliffhanger. But the cynical side of me says that the potential DVD revenue is really responsible for how each network divides up the seasons. For example, SciFi/Universal/NBC charges a suggested retail price of $59.98 for Season 3, and $49.98 for the first half of season 4. They’ll probably charge the same amount for the second half of season 4. As a result, they stand to make more by dividing each season up into as many parts as they can.

It kind of stinks.

By: Dimitris Kiminas

Dimitris Kiminas — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:13:54 +0000

Well, others certainly had the same thoughts that you do: in the UK the Region 2 DVD has been officially labeled “Season 4″, and the last 10 episodes will be labeled “season 5″.

Go to http://www.amazon.co.uk and you’ll find “Battlestar Galactica: Season 4″ up for sale: If you read the comments there, the fans are complaining that the box-set is mislabeled season 4, when it is only half of season four!! (Well, you can’t please everybody! )

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:00:06 +0000

What you say makes sense, but it does certainly depend on what is considered to be a ‘season’. For a show like Sopranos, The Shield, or The Wire, a season typically consists of a clear beginning, middle and end, with a little (or plenty) of room left for future storytelling. All three of those shows did that idea of a season-as-a-single-story very well (with the obvious exceptions of this structure being Sopranos season 6 and Shield 5 – 7). From a storytelling perspective, it makes sense to have seasons as they seem to form chapters in a novel (or novels in a series, acts in a play, etc).

With Battlestar, however, I don’t see a lot of internal structuring within the seasons themselves. Certainly the series itself is structured, but I think from season-to-season it doesn’t necessarily follow the Sopranos model. There are no real bookends at all, I find (with the New Caprica story being an exception), and the show just seems to go where it goes. There’s nothing wrong with that, I don’t think. Battlestar’s its own creature and I think writers should be able to do what they see best for their show without having to follow models (although I’d argue that season 3′s writing was sloppy and unfocused in several spots).

In the end it really just is an academic question, as you said. The airing and network problems of today will likely not have as much impact what it comes to posterity, which is how the majority of people will end up seeing this show. It’s airing now, yes, but the DVDs have an eternity to be watched.