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Quite the contrary. What ABC has learned is that viewers hate the back and forth between a few original episodes then a couple of reruns then a few original episodes, which is the alternative. There are 39 weeks in the television season and at most 26 original episodes. Do the math. They can anger viewers by making tuning in each week a craps shoot during the winter (when most of the 13 reruns and preemptions generally have been presented), or make a pact with viewers to present episodes in two, mostly uninterrupted blocks.
I cannot speak to Grey's Anatomy or Scandal, but especially with shows like Marvel's Agents of Shield and Once Upon a Time (and to some extent Quantico as well), this two and a half month hiatus is far preferable from the perspective of most fans. The episodes of these shows are strongly woven together in arcs, generally two per season. All three series reached a logical stopping point in their fall arc, during their fall finales. Because they resolved so many of the open threads, in less than a minute at the start of their spring premieres they'll be able to not only remind their fans where they left off with the few threads that they left hanging, but more importantly, allow new viewers to join the series without the confusion that such viewers would experience if they tried to pick up the series in the middle of an arc.
"Lost" is one show I remember that didnt use the split season format (pretty sure it was before networks started using it). They would air a new episode, 2 weeks of reruns, 2 new episodes, 3 weeks of reruns, a new episode and so on. It was maddening
I don't understand why some shows take a two to three month break - who's going to remember what happened on Grey's Anatomy or Scandal or Marvel's Agents of Shield after that long? Do they want these shows, and other shows that take a long midseason break, to lose viewers?
HTGAWM did lose me as a viewer as a result of the Winter Break its first season. It was a combination of that and my disdain for their storytelling, I must admit, but I probably would have stuck with it if it hadn't drawn that dramatic line between NOW and THEN. I watch it now from time to time -- not every week -- and I'll never really care what happens to anyone.
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Originally Posted by SabresFanInSA
"Lost" is one show I remember that didnt use the split season format (pretty sure it was before networks started using it).
I believe Shonda started it, in order to accommodate Viola Davis' 15-episode-per-season schedule. And it caught on.
I believe Shonda started it, in order to accommodate Viola Davis' 15-episode-per-season schedule. And it caught on.
It started loooong before Shonda did it. Cable series are often split season. And I can remember LOST actually using 1/2 seasons, just to avoid repeats. For example, starting in January and running straight thru without breaks, instead of splitting seasons.
It started loooong before Shonda did it. Cable series are often split season. And I can remember LOST actually using 1/2 seasons, just to avoid repeats. For example, starting in January and running straight thru without breaks, instead of splitting seasons.
In later seasons Lost did do it but in the beginning it was chopped all over the place
"Lost" is one show I remember that didnt use the split season format (pretty sure it was before networks started using it).
Barely. The first incarnation of it was probably Prison Break. Season 1 (in 2005-2006) was split, with a fall finale on November 28 and a spring premiere on March 20. They only had an eight week hiatus during Seasons 2 and 3. Then for Season 4 it was back to a long hiatus, with the fall finale on December 22 and the spring premiere on April 17.
In a way, '24' can be considered another instance of this, though with '24', beginning with Season 4 in 2005, they didn't employ a split season but rather started in January to allow them to run straight through to the end of the season without reruns in the show's regular time slot. If we consider that part of the same approach, then it predates the first season of Prison Break.
I was referring to the current, seemingly universal phenomenon of the networks using the phrase "Winter Break" rather than the de facto splitting of series runs. I may be wrong, but I don't think we were introduced to this bit of phraseology until Viola Davis demanded a 15-episode season on HTGAWM, after which Shonda put all of ABC's Thursday shows on "Winter Break."
HTGAWM is only in its second season, and splitting the episodes up have nothing to do with Viola Davis only being able to do 15 episodes. This has been going on for years. Calling the breaks "Fall finale" "Winter Finale" or "Mid-season finale" has been going on for years.
Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family has always had split season, and even going back to season 1, they called the final episode before the break The "Summer Finale".
I like split seasons. I believe it makes the story move faster (with few repeats) to have a first and second arc in the same season. Also it allows the network to put another show in that spot, like Agent Carter.
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