Quoted from Playdium:Great news. So I can delete it off my recorded programs list. Greatest television show in history for "milking it'.
My guess is that their hands are tied. They probably have a contract for 22 episodes (or so), so each episode contains a certain number of days. Unfortunately, archeological digs don't present interesting discoveries in a linear fashion. Especially if they lose a couple of those days because of a major storm.
That makes it a Catch-22 - if they did fewer episodes sorta like "SkinWalker Ranch" and they just edited in 10 action-packed episodes (relatively speaking) they might not have the $$$ to do the big digs. Another option is to do these longer seasons so that the contract is for more $$$... but we get a ton of episode bloat.
The "Gold Rush" option isn't available... that is where they have 4 or 5 teams, but then only focus on 3 of them each week. This allows them to skip a team or two each week in order to extend the season (and presumably edit out some of the mundane content). They have kinda tried this... like when they go to Europe for their trips... if you notice the leaves look different when they are traveling. Honestly, that is probably their best option. Use the offseason to visit locations to add more spice to the show... the problem is that location filming is probably even more expensive than doing the digs.
Did any of the guys try to pee down the bore C4? Things like that 
