The holiday season is upon us which for TV fans means our favorite shows are about to take a break for the winter to make way for holiday programming and reruns. For most shows, this simply means taking off a week in November and some or all of December off, but for a show like 911, the winter break is going to be yet another one.
On Nov. 21, 911 will air its fall finale as ABC’s Thursday night shows prepare to take their longest break of the season – a break that won’t see 911 returning until Spring 2025.
Following the fall finale, 911 will be off the air until March 6 when season 8 finally resumes after nearly a four-month break. Disappointing as this might be, it’s not unusual for ABC as this has become their standard approach to their Thursday night shows the last several years and became the new norm when 911 made the jump from FOX to ABC.
You see, rather than bringing its Thursday night shows back in January and then having to work in several breaks within the season in order to stretch the remaining episodes out until May, ABC has adapted a longer winter break that sees the likes of 911, Grey’s Anatomy, and now Doctor Odyssey taking a few months off before returning in March. By doing so, ABC is then able to air the remaining episodes of the season with little interruption at all.
For example, in season 6 – keep in mind season 7’s release strategy was unlike anything we’d seen before due to the strike delays – ABC sent 911 on a break in November that carried over into March of the next year but when 911 returned it aired with only one break in the season following its return. This allowed fans to watch the second part of the season without a chaotic schedule that saw the show airing a new episode one week and then going on a break for two weeks, which helped with the flow of the season and made the long break worth it in the end.
With 911 heading on break, ABC will be turning its Thursday nights over to new programming meaning we won’t be getting encores of the show during the hiatus. However, we can always enjoy past episodes on Hulu and Disney+ as we wait for the show to return on March 6, 2025!