‘The Following’ season 3 spoilers: A slight change with the premiere

Fox is changing course with the premiere of “The Following,” at least in terms of how the show is going to be a part of the schedule in early March.

According to a new press release uncovered by SpoilerTV, the third-season premiere of the show is no longer going to air as the first of two episodes on Monday, March 2. Instead, there will be just one episode in “New Blood” airing at 9:00 p.m. Eastern that night, while the Fox series will then move into giving you another episode the following week. What’s the reason for that? We feel like part of it could be trying to capitalize on the “Gotham” lead-in better, while it may also have to deal with making it less of an overall commitment to start off a season. It is always tricky to convince people to give two hours a week to a scripted show; something like “The Bachelor” typically does not require the same sort of attention span.

Quite a bit has already been said about the third season of the show, including that we are going to be seeing things kick off with a massive time jump to a better time in Ryan Hardy’s life. No longer will he be perpetually haunted; instead, he has a new relationship, and life is much more stable. Will that last? Don’t count on it. This show is not entitled “let’s watch Ryan start to function like a normal human being.”

As for Joe Carroll, we at least hear that he is not in the first two episodes. He may not be a part of most of the season. The character is presumably locked away, and there is a desire to move forward in the short-term.