I love the first few days back from break. There's always a lot of excited hugging with people I haven't seen in all of nine days, and I don't instantly lose my appetite when I walk into Food Court. Everything feels fresh in a very "absence makes the heart grow fonder" sort of way.
Television executives are betting that the same principle will apply to three of this year's most-hyped new shows, "FlashForward," "V" and "Glee." While ABC brought back its two sci-fi hopefuls in March ("FlashForward" returned two weeks ago and "V" had its spring premiere on Tuesday night), fans of FOX's musicomedy "Glee" will have to wait until April 13 for new episodes. Each show is hoping to recapture the critical buzz and, perhaps more importantly, the audience it enjoyed in the fall.
TV-hiatus-history suggests it could be a struggle for "FlashForward" and "V." It makes sense: these dramas have complex, serialized stories requiring a dedicated audience willing to tune in every week in order to keep track of what's going on. In the past few years, similarly styled shows like "Prison Break" or "Jericho" lost viewers and momentum following their own multi-month breaks and didn't last long after.
The future of both "FlashForward" and "V" rests on their performance in the first few episodes of the spring season, but things don't look promising. When "FlashForward" returned to air after its three-month hiatus, it attracted fewer than seven million viewers, roughly half the number of people that watched the fall premiere.
The show follows the actions of a group of FBI agents after a worldwide 137-second blackout causes nearly every human to pass out and see themselves six months in the future. While I thought the fall premiere was fantastic, it stalled creatively over the following nine episodes, losing viewers nearly every week.
According to Variety, ABC claimed it put "FlashForward" on hiatus to air its final 12 episodes consecutively, yet it appears that the audience couldn't be bothered to tune back in. The show will be buoyed by the fact that it has done surprisingly well with international audiences, but cancellation looms if it doesn't pick up.
"V" has been subjected to an even more unorthodox programming strategy. And by unorthodox, I mean it makes no sense whatsoever and leads me to believe that ABC is actively trying to kill the show. Entertainment Weekly announced in September that the network would air only the first four episodes before subjecting audiences to a four-month hiatus. A remake of the 1980s miniseries, the show follows a resistance movement to a species of aliens known as "Visitors" who harbor nefarious intentions and reptilian physiques beneath their kind, human exteriors.
Although the show's numbers slipped a bit over the first four episodes, ABC's inscrutable scheduling choices turned out to be even more damaging. The spring premiere drew even fewer viewers than the show's fall closer four episodes were not enough to capture a devoted fan base that could weather a four-month break..
Tuesday's return episode of the series was definitely entertaining, despite minor flaws. But the bigger issue for me was the fact that I could not remember who these characters were. To be fair, I didn't watch the clip show that ABC aired Monday night to refresh viewers' memories, but I think it's problematic when that becomes required viewing.
Not all shows on hiaitus have been so unfortunate, as the obsessively devoted fans of "Glee" make abundantly clear. Judging by the three "GLEE STARTS IN TWO WEEKS!!!" e-mails I've received this week, I'm fairly certain audiences haven't forgotten about this show.
ABC should take notes from FOX's fantastic marketing strategy for the hiatus at this point, "Glee" is not so much a show as a product line. While the show was off the air, "Glee" managed to remain a staple on the pop-culture radar with a Christmas single, nationwide talent search and even a national "Glee" arena tour. It also won't hurt that, upon return, it will follow "American Idol," television's top-rated show.
As refreshing as returning from break is, it's easy to forget that there is also an adjustment period, a few days to settle in while your schedule is still unsure. While "Glee" has little to worry about, cancellation looms if "Flash Forward" and "V" are unable to adjust to their post-hiatus environment.
