I have been waiting for the Mentalist to come back on. It ceased mid season just before Christmas and is not due back until 25 Feb.
The reason is that people in the USA are viewing the programs only a few weeks behind the making of them, UK is slightly behind that too.
They do not finish filming, then release the entire series. As a result they do things like taking a cast/crew break over Xmas (so no filming). Then to compound it, at the moment they have some big sports event on in the USA. They figure no one will watch anything but the sport, so they suspend the viewing of shows mid season while the sports are on, instead in the USA they run old repeats of the same show for a few weeks, this makes a big gap in the viewing of the current season. This sports suspension seems to mean they also dally more over filming the rest of the season shows, so everything is pushed further back in time.
When we import this stuff to the UK, it is still being filmed in the USA or being delayed due to sports. America want to watch everything first, so all the rest of the world has to sit about waiting for them to finally release the rest of the series we are interested in.
Its not helped by companies like Channel 5 breaking off mid season and then saying stupid stuff like ‘the show will return sometime in the spring’ instead of at least giving the relevant month, though maybe they too are left hanging by the USA filming and distribution as much as the viewer is.
US companies will be deciding which shows get renewed or cancelled in the next month or so and there seems to be some debate about the chances of Elementary getting another season, though it depends a lot on where you look – different speculators on renewals say different things. Looks like my Mentalist show will be cancelled at this rate, shame as the revamp has been doing quite well in America, now they are continuing after Red Johns death with a whole new scenario/locations.
If you do an internet search you will find lists of renewed or cancelled shows, along with the viewer ratings for each week.