So, today, I’m here to promise you that I shall never go into your e-reader, right when you’re in the middle of the book and suck your book away so you can’t finish it for a few weeks.
Oh, you didn’t think I would. Good. I just felt the need to openly promise this, as I wanted to assure you the trend in television hasn’t marched over to books.
What trend? This horrible, awful, crappy “mid-season finale.” At least three TV shows I watch have all declared last week’s episode was the last show before they retired for midseason. (It’s actually four shows if you include the one I decided to give up because it’s not enticing enough for me to come back to in a month or two or three or whenever it decides to return).
This mid-season finale thing irks me to no end. A television season is akin to a book. I should get to see my episodes each week throughout the season until the season is over. I understand that, as a practical matter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s week are probably not going to have shows because a lot of fans are traveling or with family and not going to sit and watch. But, why take a month or more off in the middle of the season? In this case, absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It leads to irritation, or to a feeling of “out of sight, out of mind.”
Going back to my book analogy, stopping episodes in the middle of the season is like yanking someone’s book away when they get to the midpoint. Why? There’s really no reason for that. I don’t care when the actors start filming or when the network starts airing the episodes. Start in October or November, for all I care. Just keep going once you start. A one- to two-month vacation just lets me decide I want to watch a different show, or decide I can live just fine without your show.
As for books, you can read Life First or Second Life all the way through. I won’t stop you. I promise. 🙂
I’m with on the TV series. But do you mean books in a trilogy or series should be published one after the other without a break? Now that’s a scary idea. Although it probably could be done if all books were fully edited before publishing the first installment, I guess. But how many authors do that?
Oh, never mind, I just re-read your post and you prob meant half way through a book, huh?
I think each book can be like a season of TV. I’m OK with multiple books, just like I’m OK with multiple seasons of a show. I just don’t want to be stopped in the middle.
Though, a lot of fans of book series do like to wait until the end of the series to start reading. They want to know the entire story. And while everything stays fresh in the mind of the writer, not necessarily for the reader, so they may not love it as much if they have to wait and things aren’t fresh.
That’s true and it might be something worth keeping in mind in the future. I will wait for series books ,but I have been known to pester a newsagent (the only place that sold books in a country town) by dropping in every time I was in town and asking when they would stock an already released book, lol.
Oops, sorry about the space comma instead of comma space.
I h ear that! TV, though, has been in the pits for decades.
Very true.
I hear you. It is so annoying to have to wait for the next episode. It seems there are fewer and fewer new ones each season. TV is going downhill.
Yes, the number of episodes is on the decline, which is sad for fans. Though, maybe people will find more time to read.