There’s a time and place for everything, and for much of television history, each series had its own fixed season slot—some debuted in fall, others in spring, and regardless, viewers could expect a fresh set of episodes annually. However, thanks to the bigger budgets and higher production quality of streaming platforms, gaps of multiple years between seasons (with no consistent release pattern) have now become standard.
While fans endure lengthy waits, some series—such as , —have attempted to speed up production to get back to a regular, yearly schedule. But that’s a tall order for certain shows, including Apple TV’s sci-fi success . Thankfully, Vince Gilligan’s enigmatic sci-fi thriller seems to be worth the extended wait that’s on the horizon.
During an Apple TV press conference, Pluribus showrunner Vince Gilligan fielded the question everyone was curious about: How’s Season 2 progressing? “We’re hard at work,” Gilligan stated, per . “My writing team is hard at work too. To everyone who enjoys the show—thank you for helping us reach this point. Crafting these episodes takes a lot of time. Right now, we’re further along in the process than I’d prefer, given how few episodes we’ve fully mapped out. But it requires patience, just like the first season did.”
Apple TV has seen its fair share of significant gaps between seasons. Foundation Season 1 launched in September 2021, Season 2 dropped in July 2023, and Season 3 is set for July 2025. One of the most notable cases is Severance, which made a big impact in February 2022 but didn’t return for Season 2 until January 2025.
On the other hand, HBO is aiming to revive the traditional yearly release model. The Pitt Season 2 premiered nearly a full year after Season 1, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 2 is being rushed to meet the same annual timeline. “We’ve been working toward this—though it’s not feasible for every show—but when it’s creatively possible, we want to return to that old model and will strive to do so,” HBO CEO Casey Bloys shared with .
When talking about Pluribus Season 2, Gilligan pointed to HBO’s return to traditional practices. “We’re grateful for everyone’s patience,” he said. “But this won’t be like The Pitt, which comes back each year. I wish it could be—since it’s an amazing, classic-style show, similar to how we did The X-Files, where we’d return the same month annually. It won’t follow The Pitt’s lead. We’ll come back in the same month—we just don’t know which year yet.”
So even though Pluribus will probably have another winter release, a yearly Christmas Carol Sturka tradition won’t take hold. But if Carol can survive alongside the hivemind until 2027, then fans can hold on that long without new episodes of her adventures.