Sky 1 Glee - January Return.

So I’ve just learnt through Digital Spy  (Thanks DS we love you guys) that Glee season 4 wont be showing in the UK until January even though it begins in the US in the next couple of weeks.

Now Sky hasn’t ignored the fact that they’ve pushed it back 4 months and have released the following statement:

We originally thought that the majority of our customers would want to see Glee as soon as possible, but last year you gave us feedback about the constant breaks in scheduling (owing to one-off broadcasts of live sport and other events in the US) and told us you wanted a more consistent scheduling pattern.

"We listened to the feedback and have decided to begin showing season 4 in January 2013, so we can play out in an unbroken run."

Now I can completely see Sky’s point here, I didn’t enjoy Glee anywhere near as much as usual last year because of the gaps between episodes. It was ridiculously frustrating. I wouldn't watch for weeks and then have loads backed up on my planner then when I did watch and get back into it, it would just stop so I can see why Sky thought that leaving it for a few months and showing it back to back would be a good idea. In theory it works!

In practice… Not so much!

Firstly, showing Glee a day after the states was the whole reason for it to move to Sky 1 and away from E4. Now they are just doing exactly what E4 did but even less people can enjoy it now as its on pay TV.

Secondly we live in an age where people know how to get TV  on demand regardless of whether they pay for it or not which means those of us that don’t want to wait don’t have to. So come January Sky’s ratings might be even lower than they are already.

Also the world has moved on. We now live in a twitter world. And hiding from spoilers and updates on shows is becoming increasingly more difficult as days go by. With a 4 month gap between us and the US there is no way we will be able to hide away from whats happening on the show.

It really is a catch 22! If we wait and stick with Sky1’s (to be fair to them) sensible scheduling we risk knowing exactly what happens before we’ve even seen an episode. If we go at it alone we are subjected to breaks every other week.

I for one have absolutely no idea what I’ll do. I guess it will depend on how busy I am with other shows. If I’m bored at xmas I can’t see me not downloading however many episodes are available and having a binge that’s if I haven’t already.

So what’s my point? I don’t really know anymore. I guess what I’m saying is that I agree with Sky’s decision. I think it’s the right idea, it’s a sensible one. No breaks will make watching Glee more enjoyable but that doesn’t mean people are actually going to watch Glee that way.