Schedule Slip / Live-Action TV

• Because of the lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic, many shows had to halt production. This resulted in many shows having to cut their seasons short and hold their remaining scripts over to the next season. Many 2020 debuts were also pushed back to 2021 so that shows can broadcast at a point after they can finally wrap production.
• Moonlighting was notorious for episode production running overtime and thus missing scheduled broadcast dates. The show, which regularly broke the fourth wall, even lampshaded this with jokes in the Previously On segments about how long it had been since they last aired an episode. The network put up with it, however, because the series was one of their biggest hits.
• The first two seasons of Beyond The Break aired on Noggin's teen block, The N, in summer 2006 and winter 2007, respectively, with season 3 due to air in winter of 2008. It then got pushed back repeatedly, with The N neither showing promos for a new season nor rerunning the first two seasons, only bothering to acknowledge it when they needed to defuse cancellation rumors, and season 3 got its initial airing on the Canadian TV station then known as Razer. It finally aired in the US in June of 2009, with the entire season being shoved into the span of three weeks.
• Nickelodeon is bad with this as a rule, but the fourth season of iCarly takes the cake.
  • Season 3 managed to air 18 or so episodes (with some double length episodes) in about 6 months. Season 4's season opener was aired in July 2010, and did not finish until almost a year later in mid-July 2011. The season has 9 episodes only, with one double length episode and a 3 part crossover.
    • The show was budgeted for 13 episodes (which ended up as 8 single and 1 two-part episode that makes up 9 episodes), but the 11th, 12th and 13th were made into a Crossover with Victorious, and basically have the iCarly characters become guest stars on their own show.
    • The final episode of Season 4 is a cliffhanger of a sudden Ass Pull from one of the characters, and clearly has rushed characterisation due to not having those extra 3 episodes, nor are the fans happy they'll have to wait another 5 months for the first episode of the next season in August to resolve the cliffhanger.
    • Part of why it's so ridiculous is that, instead of having regular episodes, each individual new episode is treated like a major event, as though it was a special, because new episodes have become so rare!
  • The Thundermans began to show gaps between episodes in its third season, with a notable example being one episode airing in February and the next in April.
• The Conners episode "Separation of Church and Dan" was originally scheduled to air as the second episode on October 23, 2018; it was swapped for "Tangled Up in Blue" at the last minute, but aired on November 13.
• The Sopranos: The first three seasons arrived one per year three years in a row, but things changed dramatically after this:
  • Season 4 was released about a year and half after season 3 which was the earliest example of the fans being annoyed with David Chase's slow plotting pace. Surprise, surprise when season 5 was released a year and a half later. David Chase not being one to settling for that decided he needed nearly two years to plot the sixth and final season. When the damn thing finally premiered it was announced that nine more episodes were added and fans almost had a heart attack when the season actually premiered only ten months later. Say what you will about the controversial ending, most people who had been following the show from day one were probably just relieved it had ended at all.
• The Writer's Strike of 2007-2008 caused this for several network TV shows. However, unlike HBO and their fancy-schmancy accommodations and lack of restrictions, network TV is far more strictly regulated in terms of production, airtimes, and the like, so to compensate for the slippage and finish a season up by May Sweeps, many shows had to be cut down from typical 22-24 episode runs (for example, 30 Rock's second season was 15 episodes stretched out from October to May). This had the dual effect of long, frustrating hiatuses during first-run airing and rushed storylines in the actual episode sequence (which are even more noticeable in syndication).
  • One of the most obviously affected shows was Heroes, and the Strike-shortened second season is usually highlighted as one of the main reasons for its failure.
  • This also had an enormous effect on the seventh season of 24, as well, which (as one could guess from the title) required 24 episodes per season to fit its plot structure. However, only 8 episodes had been finished by the time of the strike, and, since the show had gotten into the habit of airing its full run of episodes in consecutive weeks, FOX decided to push its airdate by another year. As a result, the first episode of Season 7 ended up airing over a full 19 months after the finale of Season 6. To help compensate, FOX commissioned a TV Movie to fill the gap, airing roughly 2 months before Season 7 began.
• 'Til Death. Besides getting hit by the writer's strike in season two, it was actually pulled from the schedule seven episodes (aired over five weeks) into its third season in the fall of 2008, spent nearly a full year off the air, returned with its fourth season in the fall of 2009, was pulled again, marathoned four episodes on Christmas night, spent six more weeks off the air, and finally commenced airing all thirty remaining episodes of seasons three and four over four and a half months. Not to mention that the eighth episode of season three wasn't even seen until that Christmas night marathon.
• Done on purpose with Breaking Bad. They split season 5 into two parts and broadcast the second part the following year. This gave time for Bryan Cranston to grow a full head of hair, which was integral to the show's plot.
  • Same thing with Mad Men, also on AMC. AMC realized how successful the last half of Season 5 was, so they followed the same plan.
• Better Call Saul has seen rather irregular gaps: Season 1 aired from February to April 2015. Season 2 aired exactly a year later in 2016. There was then a 14 month gap to season 3, which began airing in April 2017. Then there was a 16 month gap to the premiere of season 4 in August 2018. Then there was a large gap until February 2020 for season 5, with this one being the result of the season's production getting pushed back due to most of the crew working on filming El Camino.
• What was officially the seventh season of 21st-century Doctor Who was split into two halves broadcast in successive years, with a Christmas Episode in between. Despite being supposedly a single season, the second half had a different regular cast and a largely-separate Story Arc. It's widely rumoured that this was because of a budget overspend. This is, however, incorrect as Series 7 had always been intended to be a split season due to a planned change in supporting cast, and the preceding season had also been a split season in order to provide a mid-season cliffhanger; the Series 7 split was orchestrated in order to allow the annual Christmas special to be incorporated as part of a regular season for the first time.
  • The show's 16-year hiatus is officially classified as this by the BBC, despite both the production staff at the time and the fans recognizing that the show had effectively been cancelled after the conclusion of "Survival."
  • Done on purpose for Series 10, which was pushed back to a Spring 2017 premiere after the two previous Twelfth Doctor seasons ran in the fall; filming dates were adjusted accordingly. The official explanation from the BBC was that this was to better position Steven Moffat's final season as showrunner as "event television"; one reason the show has seen declining day-of ratings is partially because fall starts were putting it up against live sporting events and The X Factor. The downside of this schedule change was that the only new televised Who between Series 9's conclusion in December 2015 and the start of Series 10 were the 2015 and '16 Christmas Episodes — unless one counts the young adult-oriented Spinoff Class (2016), which follows a completely new set of characters but had a major appearance by the Doctor in the first episode.
• Star Trek: Discovery was supposed to premiere in January 2017, but production problems led to it being delayed first to May, then set for a fall release, which became September. The Good Fight was moved up to 19 February from May to make up for it.
• On some PBS affiliates, the last ten episodes of The Noddy Shop didn't air until January of 2000, while the other episodes from the same season aired in the fall of 1999.
• The final episode of Ultra Q wasn't aired until the end of December 1966 after the show was cancelled early back in July to make way for the premiere of Ultraman.
• The Marvel Cinematic Universe Netflix shows have a bad case of this. While a new season comes out every three to six months, if you only follow one show, be prepared to wait a long time for the next season to come around.
  • Jessica Jones released its first season on November 20, 2015. It wasn't until March 8, 2018, almost two-and-a-half years later, that season 2 came out. Much of this delay stems from Melissa Rosenberg being forced to halt production of season 2 to allow for filming of The Defenders, in which Jessica plays a part.
  • Really, filming of The Defenders threw all the other shows off, simply because every other show had to basically come to a grinding halt to allow the big teamup show.
  • Luke Cage: It was only 11 months from season 1 to The Defenders, and then ten months from The Defenders to season 2.
  • Daredevil had it worst. After merely 11 months from season 1 to season 2, there was a 17 month gap from season 2 to The Defenders. Then there was another year and three months from The Defenders to season 3, so in short, the gap from season 2 to season 3 was over 30 months.
• Atlanta's first season was in fall of 2016, and the second season didn't premiere until March 2018, so over a year. This was due to Donald Glover's commitment to Solo and his music career as well as the supporting cast doing bigger projects.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood would usually have a 15-episode season (5 episodes over the course of a week) that would air five during one week, then take a 3 to 6 month break before showing the next week's worth of episodes.
  • An interesting case happened with the week "Go Stop Go". The week was produced in 1997 and was originally slated to premiere the same week as the Arthur episode "Arthur Meets Mr. Rogers", since the third episode in that series promoted it. Instead of airing in the third week of September 1997 as intended, that week aired throughout the last week of July 1999.
  • The spin-off Donkey Hodie suffers from hiatuses that usually last three months, but the one in between "The Potato Stand; Clyde's Surprise Playdate" and "Snow Day; Snow Surprise Challenge" was six months long if "A Donkey Hodie Halloween" airing in between them isn't counted.
• Hell's Kitchen has odd breaks throughout its seasons. Each of them are filmed in a tight schedule prior to the airdate, with some of the seasons being released years after they were filmed (Its 15th and 16th season were filmed in 2014, yet both of them were respectively aired in 2015 and late 2016). The most recent seasons, the 19th and 20th, have yet to be released despite being filmed and fully edited. The former was set for a 2020 summer release date, yet the COVID-19 pandemic led to it being delayed to midseason, instead re-airing All Stars (Season 17) when Season 19 was initially planned for. Fans have been patiently waiting for its release, yet nothing has come since, leading to the growing misconception that the show was cancelled. FOX's recent sports acquisitions have likely played a part in why the seasons have had yet to air, with fewer spots on the primetime schedule, since when Season 18 (Rookies vs Veterans) had aired, Fox has picked up WWE Smackdown which airs each Friday night, alongside football on Thursday during the Fall.
• The Orville hasn't been able to stick to a yearly release schedule like most other scripted series. This is because Seth MacFarlane has an ambitious vision for the show and extra time is needed to achieve it^note for example, the climax of "Identity, Part 2" required the development of a brand-new graphics engine. Because of this, there was a year-and-a-half gap between Seasons 1 and 2 and a Channel Hop from Fox to Hulu between Seasons 2 and 3^note because an online streamer just needs to release episodes without worrying about scheduling with the release of Season 3 being delayed further due to production stoppages caused by COVID-19.
• Glee took a three-week hiatus after the previous episode before airing "Shooting Star". Speculation says it was out of respect for the Newtown school shootings a few months earlier. The episode was prefaced with a slide that warned of school violence, although this did not appear on online streams.
• Odd Squad, being a PBS Kids show, is definitely not immune to this.
  • The first season consisted of 40 episodes and took 2 years to complete, with hiatuses spanning anywhere from 2-4 months kicking in after the premiere of "Captain Fun" and "Switch Your Partner Round and Round". The episodes "Undercover Olive", "Not So Splash", "By the Book" and "The Curious Case of Pirate-itis" were all pushed back to October 5, 2015 from their intended premiere dates due to being bundled together as part of PBS Kids' Odd Squad: Against the Odds event, with the latter having the biggest shift (being set to premiere on January 4, 2016 instead of a couple days after the event like the other episodes). A similar case happened with the Season 1 finale, "O is Not For Over", as it was originally set to premiere on March 5, 2016 before being pushed back to May 30, 2016 instead, where it premiered. It then had June 20, 2016 advertised as its premiere as it was bundled with the Season 2 premiere, "First Day", for the Odd Squad: Agents of Change event.
  • Season 2, which had 35 episodes, brought on longer hiatuses lasting anywhere from 4 months to 6. It got to such a point where TVO Kids, which aired the show in Canada, were premiering episodes far sooner than PBS Kids for a brief while before falling back in line with the American block's scheduling when Season 3 premiered. Overall, the season took a good 3 years to complete, despite the shortened episode amount.
  • Season 3 had the most reasonable scheduling of the bunch, with all 20 episodes airing within the span of a year. However, it suffered some schedule slipping of its own, most notably with the final five episodes, which premiered 6 months after the previous five that had aired in July of 2020. WVIZ in Cleveland had also taken the liberty of premiering said final episodes in October, while every other PBS station aired them as intended the week of January 18, 2021 as part of the Odd Squad: End of the Road event.
• Given American Gods (2017) was rife with behind-the-scenes issues, twice it only returned after over a year off the air - Season 1 started on April 2017, Season 2 on June 2019, and Season 3 on January 2021. Season 3 also had one episode receiving an enforced delay when Starz didn't want to release it on Super Bowl Sunday.

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