On the one hand, Katie and I have nothing regular to watch and have to do without some of our favorite shows and characters for a handful of months until the new season starts.

On the other hand, it gives us time to catch up on streaming shows and do other things. It also gives us a chance to re-assess what shows we watch and determine if we want to keep watching them or not.

But when you have fence riders, that re-assessment becomes difficult. By “fence riders” I mean shows that are either so early in their runs that it’s not easy to tell if they’re good, bad, or just having growing pains and will get better. You don’t want to give up too early and regret it later when, by many accounts, it has become great.

We have so many fence riders this season. Some examples are Found, Suits: LA, Hunting Party, Matlock, and NCIS: Origins.

We loved the first season of Found. It was really unique and had good characters and a cool idea. Season two has been really weird and prolonged and hard to watch. Too many side stories.

Suits was a show we discovered during the Netflix boom of its syndication in 2023. Suits: LA had promise as a West Coast spinoff of the show but has just been really rough. We’re not particularly big fans of any characters, a single case has spanned nearly the entire debut season, and it’s just hard to watch… but it could be good… or at least get better… we hope.

Hunting Party was a premiere I watched the first night it aired and I loved it right away. Very cool idea, the characters have promise, and, as I said, I liked it immediately. However, since that premiere aired, I have not watched any subsequent episodes. I have nine new episodes languishing on my DVR.

Matlock was not a show either of us wanted to watch but we gave it a shot and the first few episodes were surprisingly good. But the next bunch just got dull and predictable and, as a result, we have amassed eight unwatched episodes on our DVR. I’m not sure we’ll ever watch them, TBH. Mostly because the concept seems to have run its course in our minds.

NCIS: Origins is interesting. It promised a Leroy Jethro Gibbs origin story but it has been ridiculously overdramatic and lacking any of the heart in both the storytelling and characters of the flagship series. While I want to know what happens to Lala (Mariel Molino) because that was a helluva cliffhanger, I’m not sure it will be enough to keep us watching.

What’s nice, though, is when networks, in an attempt to cut costs, makes it easy for us by cancelling fence riding shows. NBC did that for us by nixing Found and Suits: LA. I think on those two, we’ll watch what’s left just to finish them. Matlock and NCIS: Origins were renewed a while ago. The status of Hunting Party has yet to be announced and I’m holding off on watching what I have saved until I find out. It might be a bad sign that I’m rooting for cancellation to save me nine hours of my life.