Knowing the April 4, 2017 date helps you understand:
Elias had binged through four seasons in a fever dream, watching a version of the show that seemed to predict real-world events with eerie accuracy. But the fourth disc ended on a cliffhanger, the screen fading to black just as Scofield stared directly into the camera and whispered, "The cycles don't stop. They just reset."
Elias worked through the night, his coffee growing cold and bitter. He realized the "release" wasn't about a television broadcast. The show was a virus, a cognitive hack. The "Season 5" he was looking for wasn't a collection of episodes; it was an activation key embedded in the original airing schedule.