Wait a second … Greek aired a finale last week?

What the hell? Did anyone else know going in, or coming out, of last week’s episode of Greek, that it was a finale, of sorts?

I, for one, did not. I had no clue. Not only did ABC Family not advertise it as such (as far as I saw), I also didn’t read about, or see it, anywhere else. Sure, once I finally got to Entertainment Weekly from that week, I noticed the detail in the “What to Watch” section (man, has that gone down the pishadoo, as Tony Soprano incorrectly uses the term), but still. Why keep it a secret?

Anyway, forgetting about the fact that I didn’t receive notice, I also didn’t feel like anything had drawn to a close by the end of the episode. Granted there was a countdown to the Apocalypse, which was also a countdown for Cappie to make his decision about Casey, but, so what? That could easily have been an episode cliffhanger, not a season one.

Plus, the show’s not even going on hiatus for a year, or six months, or whatever. According to their website, Greek returns with an “all new season” on August 31. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad it’ll be back sooner rather than later, but isn’t that little more than a quick trip home for the weekend to get your laundry done?

Which is maybe to say that my complaint is about how weird cable seasons are … no, definitely still more confused by the Greek “finale.” I was super into the idea that the show was going to utilize a totally different perspective on “seasons” when it began. I still don’t believe Oreo when he tells me that this was just the second half of season 2 … this feels like the fourth or fifth time that the show came back from a hiatus. What does that make what’s coming in August? A hard season three? (but then wouldn’t there have to be more of a break? Or have they done this before?) Season 2 light? An encore? Tell me!

But it’s not just that. To end seasons on shows that have natural stopping points, at random times, is to give us little reason to feel as if we’ve come to any sort of satisfactory resting point. Yeah, I think that the semester, or trimester, or whatever the brains at Cyprus-Rhodes do, just ended, but it doesn’t feel that way. College has two hard brakes: winter vacation, and summer vacation. I suppose trimester-based schools would have three, but spring break (see however many seasons ago) wouldn’t be one of them. Or, would it?

This may seem like nitpicking, but it just makes things really strange. Particularly because Greek utilizes what it considers to be natural breaks to allow for a much more subdued cliffhanger. It, like most shows that revolve around a school calendar, rely on the time of year to do some of their heavy lifting when it comes to finales. But, when you’re picking a somewhat random date, you need to pick up the slack.

Which Greek did not do this time around. I seriously got no indication that there wasn’t going to be an episode this week, or next. Maybe part of that was because I’ve felt like this season (or whatever, Oreo!) has been lacking in so many ways, and I kept talking about how it would hopefully improve as the season progressed … Therefore, how could the season end before the show cleaned up its act?

Okay, now I’m lost.

Look, like you, I’ll wait anxiously for August, and I’m looking forward to new episodes, despite how the last dozen have been. All I’m saying is: how about a little warning next time? Geez.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jun 25, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT