User blog comment:LoveWaffle/Well This Is Somewhat Hopeful/@comment-5699975-20121223035004/@comment-1895174-20121224132230

1) It's possible he was talking about the legacy, but he did mention an "epic conclusion". And we might have been able to say that the show would be both a continuation of A:EMH and tie-in with USM if not for Power Man and Iron Fist.

2) First of all, it's not two 26 episode seasons. These types of shows even getting a season that long is relatively new - typically, they get the standard 13 episode season that most scripted shows get that don't air on a major network (ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, etc).  So it's four 13-episode seasons, not two 26-episode ones.

2b) Secondly, 52 episodes is definitely an upper threshold for animated, kid-oriented shows, 65 being the other limit. This has to do with scheduling the show in syndication.  Unlike more mature TV, where the syndication number is 100 episodes, kids cartoons rarely leave their home network, so the optimization for the network is to know how many times they can run it over the course of the year as opposed to some benchmark for its popularity.  With 52 episodes, a channel can run the show once a week and be done in one year, or twice a week and show it twice during the year, and so on.  With 65 episodes, a show can be aired once five days a week and be done in 13 weeks, which means they can run it in its entirety four times over the course of the year.  And while I know there are animated kids shows that last longer than that (the first basic cable show to break 100 episodes was actually Rugrats), or that the number is completely inflexible, but there are a lot of great shows that don't continue after 52 episodes - Samurai Jack, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Batman Beyond, Rocko's Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, etc.