It was a generalization and somewhat sarcastic, but I've been seeing shorter season lengths over the past couple of years for a number of shows. 23 episodes used to be a typical season. Pushing Daisies wasn't scheduled for 20+ episodes even before it was cancelled. Life on Mars isn't scheduled for that many that I can tell and I believe the same was true for Prison Break.

Over the past 3 years it really feels like the networks have been giving us 10-14 episode miniseries that initially have the promise of being full-blown series. It's generally been a result of cancellations and as you've noted, they don't always wrap successfully. But I'm also not digging the schedule shuffles nor the oddball seasonality of some programs. Running a short season of one show then doing a mid-season replacement with a different one, etc.