A Short Rant About Hiatuses

So you saw a great episode of your favorite show the week before and you can’t wait to see what happens next. You wait all day with baited breath for prime time and turn the channel and see… a rerun of a different show. 

A wave of confusion hits you. “Did I miss it? Am I on the wrong channel?” You ask. Flipping through you channel guide you see that you were on the right channel but your show is not scheduled to air!

Confusion turns to anger. Why would they do this to you? Why would they put something out with no conclusion and then skip a week or longer?

This is what happens every time a show goes on hiatus, either because they are behind in production, or they want their episode to air during sweeps week. And why the fuck not? It builds anticipation, and it’s not like the fans won’t watch, right? 

When a season has 15 to twenty episodes or less out of a fifty two week year, is it that outrageous to expect a professional company to have most of the material finished in advance? To anticipate needed gaps before starting release? I can kind of understand when some small youtuber can't quite make their deadline but when major corporations start doing the same thing you have to raise your eyebrow. Of course you can't expect a creator to put on an incomplete product or you get some of the early episodes of Dragon Ball Super with their terrible animation filling in the gaps. But at the same time these shows are often making millions and fans should expect money and resources commiserate with that put in to them.

I understand that this is just fan-griping, but when you love something and it lets you down you tend to grip a little. When you do this stuff you’re disappointing thousands of fans, and if you have to do it, I hope you’re doing it because you want to put out a better product rather than wanting a big sweeps week.

-Gedaemon