# What do Brits call episodic television across all years? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 25, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277 "2010-04-25T04:04:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ivan732](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aeb1de/32.png) [@ivan732](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan732)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/21 "2010-04-25T16:28:04Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > It seems to me that the second difference is the direct result of the first. If you only have six episodes of each show, obviously you’d need to be introducing shows throughout the entire year or you’d lose all your advertisers. And for viewers, only having six episodes to look forward to all year seems maddening enough, but I don’t think even you could bear it if all the shows were shown just in the fall. They’re by no means all limited to six-episode seasons, although anything more than 13 is very unusual, apart from soaps of course. As for keeping advertisers sweet, I think the British TV industry is greatly affected by the presence of the BBC, which of course doesn’t have advertisers. The Beeb was there first, and the commercial operators have always sort of worked around them. We don’t have quite the production-line system that seems to exist in the States, where seasons start while upcoming episodes are still in production (well, perhaps in the case of shows with longer seasons, such as Doctor Who, where I believe production and broadcast periods do overlap a little). ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/22 "2010-04-26T00:22:32Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > But that only creates confusion here. People hated the Twin Peaks season two finale because it was billed as a series finale. What confusion? Twin Peaks only ran two seasons, so the season two finale _was_ the series finale. I never watched the show, but according to imdb the series finale ended on a major cliffhanger. I’m guessing that’s what pissed people off, as opposed to an esoteric confusion about widely used terms used properly. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/23 "2010-04-26T01:32:29Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Question for the Brits: Do you guys recignize that having two different words adds utility? We cope. It’s really not that hard. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/24 "2010-04-26T02:31:59Z")
> [@Charley](#): > > The idea that you would interrupt the run of a normal programme series to impose a break in the middle, and during that break show repeats out of order just makes no sense here. (I must confess, I still don’t understand why this happens in the US I’m guessing it’s to get people to watch the show as often as possible. If they broadcast the same number of new episodes as they do now, but all in a row with no reruns in between, many people would abandon the show after the new episodes had all aired. But people who are in the habit of watching a show each week will often still watch even if one or two weeks’ episodes are re-runs. Plus, if a show is broadcast live, or if there’s very little lag time between when episodes are filmed/taped and when they’re aired, having re-run weeks gives the people involved in making the show time off, or time to get caught up making new episodes. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/25 "2010-04-26T04:20:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m guessing it’s to get people to watch the show as often as possible. If they broadcast the same number of new episodes as they do now, but all in a row with no reruns in between, many people would abandon the show after the new episodes had all aired. But people who are in the habit of watching a show each week will often still watch even if one or two weeks’ episodes are re-runs. > > Plus, if a show is broadcast live, or if there’s very little lag time between when episodes are filmed/taped and when they’re aired, having re-run weeks gives the people involved in making the show time off, or time to get caught up making new episodes. Plus, it’s a nice way to let people who started watching late and haven’t seen every episode of the show a chance to catch up. Granted, with shows on DVD and the Internet, it’s no longer that big a deal. But I loved it when I was younger. Only fairly recently has it seemed to matter that you watched a show in order, anyways. Shows were often made where most of the continuity didn’t matter. Sure, it was there, and watching a previous show might help explain a more recent one, but rarely were there actual spoilers that would completely ruin the previous show. And rarely did one show absolutely need another episode to make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/26 "2010-04-26T23:36:46Z")
It’s very rare here for a show to be cancelled mid-season. It has to be absolutely dire for that to happen, whereas US networks will ruthlessly cancel something that isn’t getting the desired ratings. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/27 "2010-04-27T14:41:59Z")
Someone upthread said that in the UK whole seasons are usually filmed in their entirety before any episodes air, so it wouldn’t make as much sense to cancel something you already paid for anyway. In the US, shows usually film a few episodes ahead, so cancelling a show mid-season saves on production costs. ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/28 "2010-04-27T19:17:32Z")
Everyone in my circle of friends (late teens / early twenties) uses “season” and “series” the same way as in America. Maybe it’s the influence of DVD box sets…? Using “series” to refer to a year’s programming strikes me as a little old-fashioned, something my parents’ generation would say. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/29 "2010-04-27T21:56:19Z")
US pay networks start and end shows all over the calendar. But a lot of them only have 13 shows in a season. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2010, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/30 "2010-04-28T06:09:43Z")
I think a lot of the original cable shows are deliberately programming against the reruns on the broadcast networks. I might be more inclined to watch Rescue Me if my other shows aren’t new. There are some exceptions, of course. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2010, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277/31 "2010-04-28T10:24:24Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > it’s perfectly possible for a show to have more than one series in a calendar year. Same with the US. For example, Survivor has run 20 seasons in 10 calendar years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-brits-call-episodic-television-across-all-years/537277.md?page=1)