Showbiz is a tough industry, and making television shows is particularly hard. They’re much longer than movies, and, if successful, have the potential to become years- and even decades-long commitments for everyone involved, from stars to writers to directors. It’s great to be gainfully employed, especially when you have a rabid fanbase clamoring for more as soon as a season of a show is finished, and if your show is popular enough you know you’ll always have a group of people ready to wait for new installments, no matter how long it takes.
For some shows, those gaps of waiting between seasons can be really, really long. The prestige TV era ushered in more intense and more expensive productions, making TV shows that had the same caliber of something you’d see in a movie theater, and the cost for all of that was time. But even before the prestige era, shows could vanish for years before making their big comeback a decade or more later, either because of scheduling conflicts or premature cancelations or any number of other reasons.
Because these shows are worth the wait, we’ve counted down the ten series with the longest gaps between seasons, from reality TV to sci-fi epics to dark comedies to underground crime dramas. One thing they all prove is that those who really love something are willing to twiddle their thumbs in the meantime, ready to watch whatever comes out, whenever it comes out. We hated to see these shows go, and were overjoyed when they made their grand return.
TV Shows With the Longest Gaps Between Seasons
These shows took their sweet time going from one season to the next, but don’t hold that against them.
Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
READ MORE: TV Shows People Love That Are Actually Bad
The Worst Performances By 20 Great Actors
These actors are all giants in their field. Most have won Oscars for acting! But even with actors this good, they can’t all be winners.