It seems that the new trend for television series is to have short seasons, averaging 12 to 13 episodes per season, rather than the normal 20 to 23. Since incidences of this trend correlates strongly with the quality of the series, this is something that I very much approve of. The latest example of this that both my wife and I enjoyed is Spartacus: Blood & Sand, and boy, has it been a wild ride.
As usual, I first read about the series on QT3. The initial buzz was quite poor however and after I learned that the people who worked on it were also some of the same people who were responsible for Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, I sort of lost interest. But then a weird thing happened. Usually shows get hyped up and then interest levels off after a while. Instead, Spartacus premiered as a bit of a damp squib, but then garnered more and more critical acclaim.