I really don't like winter finales.

Nothing annoys me more about network television these days than this newish trend of the mid-season or winter finale.  Don't get me wrong; I understand them, but they're obnoxious!  Sure, a show cannot sustain an episode per week, every week from September to May (or whatever a show's particular season is now that they are all not fall to spring).  I know studios only order so many episodes per season and there are obvious specials and events they must plan around (because there's nothing I love more than to have Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pre-empted by a fourteen-hour Dancing With the Stars retrospective).  But when did it suddenly become smart programming to have a show start at the beginning of October, run three episodes, get bumped for a couple of weeks, come back for maybe two more, then be off until March?!  That's the part I don't understand!  A lot of today's biggest shows are serial ("This month it's corn flakes." copyright: Peter Tork); they need continuity. I'm not against cliffhangers.  What I am against is the huge breaks the networks force.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  Especially if you have a good show that has an audience but maybe isn't doing as well as you think it should in the ratings, why would you put a two- to three-month break smack in the middle of the season, potentially alienating marginal viewers or, heaven-forbid, loyal viewers into giving up on your show? Summer hiatuses (hiatusii?) are hard enough, but I have found myself lose interest in shows to which I am completely dedicated over extended mid-season breaks.  Granted, I almost always come back to them with full rapt attention, but I find it difficult sometimes to keep track of when they're all coming back.

This is on my mind as a few of my shows (geez, I sound like the old stereotype of a housewife with daytime soaps) are slowly starting to come back from their extended holiday respites.  I have to do a search to see when they are all returning, though.  It's too much to remember all the dates they give when the break starts after several weeks of nothing.

And THEN you have to contend with the other new trend of mid-season series premieres!  You know, those shows whose seasons don't even BEGIN until January, if not later?  Oh, the over-saturation of television!  At least a lot of it is good again!