I was actually torn between

I was actually torn between whether or not they got into the underlying Red John storyline enough throughout the seasons.  On one hand, I was happy they didn’t focus on it every single episode and they had “regular” crimes/issues to deal with.  At the same time, it seemed like there weren’t enough small developments regarding Red John.  It almost felt like the writers had all these ideas for episodes, they’d get those written and in order and then someone would go, “Hey, what about Red John?!”, and they’d throw in an episode on that.

I wonder if they weren’t sure how many seasons they were going to get, so they went back and forth.  Then, in the 3rd season, they were really unsure if they were going to get renewed for a 4th season or something.