[Caged Great]

I view this season as like the coles notes version of the story. Realistically, this season and next themselves could have been an 8 year show in of themselves in order to flesh things out as they have been from season 1-6.

However, the cast/crew does not want to keep going forever, so they are having to trim things significantly, where months and years are appearing to be over in a flash. I would not be surprised if in real time the story this season was taking place over the course of a full calendar year or more. They just are skipping over travel time for X to get from place a to place b. Like the guys stuck out on the island. That would have at least took 4-5 days minimum for the lake to freeze over. However, it seemed based off filming that it was 1. Simple things like that are getting glossed over.