this applies to a lot of shows: american dad, spongebob squarepants, family guy, futurama…
frasier, the sopranos, married with children, the simpsons, apparently respect original broadcast date. Hope I’m not wrong.
It’s tiring: for example I find season 3 that covers years 2003 to 2006 and season 4 including episodes from years 2004 to 2008. Sometimes there are ‘spaces’ of several months within the same season (episode 3 was released in May 2012 and the next one, miraculously, in December 2012). Why don’t they package episodes following the logic order of years?
Who had this stupid idea and why?
Isn’t it the broadcasters often air them out of production order?
That’s probably the case, but I’m sure they get aired in a different order more often than you’d think.
I don’t have an answer for OP but, having worked in a TV show, I have seen episodes broadcasted in a different order from production. I have no idea why though since these decisions had nothing to do with my area.
Because the networks did not respect the production seasons when broadcasting. Production seasons are designedbby show creators to be a cohesive whole, with an order. It makes sense to go back to this when releasing DVDs and not stick with random broadcast seasons.
Example: Fox screwed over Firefly’s broadcast order.
In multiple ways. The order was supposed to go: season 1, followed by season 2, then season 3. But they fucked up that order after season 1.
After? No, they fucked it up during season 1.
People find it gratifying to be privy to esoteric information. It is praised and celebrated in our society to go beyond the naive simple assumption and do something unexpected.
It is this strange unconscious yearning toward complexification that drive’s people’s decisions to do stupid-but-complicated shit like this.
