Breaking Bad has been an award show favorite for years, but it seems over the past couple months that more and more people have taken the AMC show under their Netflix wing. The season five premiere was a ratings smash, and this made minds wander to Dexter. Showtime’s serial killer drama’s season four gave audiences heart attacks and got everyone talking. People quickly caught up and, by the time season five rolled around: ratings success.
What is it about these cable shows that takes four seasons before they catch on like rapid fire? Possible theories: fans wait until they’re sure the show is worth their time, there’s just too much on TV that those shows get put in the “maybe later” pile, or just word of mouth being really slow.
TV fans never know how well a new show will fare. What you think is the best thing to hit the small screen could be next week’s cancellation. Why dive into the first season if that’s all you ever get? That’s the big risk you take when watching, say… FOX. RIP, Reunion and Terra Nova. So it is possible viewers wanted to make sure there was enough to sink their teeth into, especially if they wanted to commit even more and get the DVDs.
The other reason behind this “four seasons and then boom, everyone’s favorite show” thing is the “I’ll get to it.” There are so many shows to watch that the average person who works, goes to school, or actually leaves the house can’t possibly watch that much TV. Time has to be set aside and, frankly, there isn’t enough. So some shows get put on the back burner, and hour long dramas that require an investment of attention get easily replaced by easy-to-follow comedies like 2 Broke Girls and New Girl.
Then you have word of mouth. With social media, opinions are instant. How many people sit on their laptop and tweet the entire play by play of Glee? Way too many, but the point is that with all the technology… why doesn’t the word get out faster that shows like Dexter and Breaking Bad are top notch? Could it be no one listens? Let’s go with that.
Simple as that. People either wait until they feel the show’s worth the effort or just push it back and then magically by season four, time frees up and they must make it a priority to play catch up. So that has to be the reasoning behind both Dexter and Breaking Bad getting a huge amount of attention season four to five.
