It's early December, and that means that many of our favorites are either wrapping up for the year, or in the case of our longer running broadcast shows, taking some time off so that people can go forth and enjoy their holiday parties, kids can watch some old favorites with their parents, and reviewers like myself can write best-of lists in November and completely mail in the last two weeks of the year.
This inter-season has become the six weeks on the schedule that become the most volatile. NBC loves to sneak a patch series or two in there (this year it's the return of The Sing Off), some cable networks might try to sneak in an event series to keep it's scheduling even while series slowly go into reruns (TNT's Mob City is a great example), but generally it's about the return of some of your fondest childhood memories (I personally will watch the Charlie Brown special somewhere in the ballpark of 20 times between now and Christmas, and will likely watch A Christmas Story at least twice when it airs during it's annual marathon on Christmas Eve on TBS).
It's also a time of year where one can find a ton of sports programming if you're into that sort of thing. College bowl season roars into full blown frenzy by the middle of the month, there's typically an all day basketball smorgasbord over the course of Christmas Day. If you're a hockey fan, the last week of the calendar year never fails to provide juicy match-ups, as local rivals face off in the NHL's attempt to keep teams as close to home as possible for the holidays.
As for me? I'll be catching up on Netflix with the shows I've wanted to get into but missed due to focusing on whatever Bravo or E! dreck happens to be on the air. I view it as a Christmas gift to myself to catch up on as much Bob's Burgers and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as humanly possible while trying to figure out exactly what the appeal of egg nog is anyway.
So enjoy your holidays, a nice time to slow down and catch up with friends and family, because this year mid-season is going to start surprisingly early with the return of NBC's Community and it's old showrunner Dan Harmon for it's fifth season (mid-season needs to start a little early for the peacock as it loses two weeks of schedule to the Sochi Olympics).
Next Time: We start looking back at 2013 over the next couple of weeks, whether it's the best or the worst, the biggest stories, and the shows that we can stuff in a time capsule as the best representation of the year in pop culture. In the meantime, we all here at Manhattan Digest wish you a happy, healthy, holiday season!
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