Shows stuck in re-run hell

The problem is the actor's union...the TV season used to be 26 episodes...now its 22 or 23 hours...also, the sweeps months are driving this trend of rerun hell...so you pretty much know that NOV FEB and MAY will have all new episodes, so that would mean half of the season will be viewed in those months...leaving Sept..Dec..Jan....Mar and April have to split the remaning shows....which comes to about 2 new episodes a month...

FOX has solved, as mentioned earlier, by having two TV seasons in one year...the first half, with Prison Break and others shows...the second haved anchored by 24 and Amercan Idol, with no reruns having to be shown at all....ABC and the others just need to have better shows, and move to the staggared season like FOX...

Reruns really don't bother me since I don't watch any TV while it is being broadcast. I'm so behind on TV anyway so by the time I get to watching a show, there are already a couple episodes there.

It is horrible the way things are now. As others have said, the way 24 and a few other shows have done it are the way I like it. Never a rerun. I usually hate it when a season goes on summer hiatus in May and think waiting till sometime in October seems forever, but sometime in June I get over it. At that point it doesn't matter if I have to wait till October or January, so might I might as well wait till January and not deal with breaks or reruns.

I like how Survivor has 2 seasons in one. Other networks should follow a similar example. If Alias and 24 were on the same network and had one as their fall show and the other as their spring show, they would lock me into that night for the entire season. This has to be good for the advertisors, so I hope it is a system that catches on and finally puts reruns to sleep.

Another idea is to break the tyranny of the 22 episode season (with automatic renewal if the ratings are good) and let creators do as many episodes as the story requires. That way you could have 10-12 episode seasons to intersperse with your 22 episode shows.

"Serial" television series ("Lost", "Desperate Housewives", et al.) would benefit from either the "24" model (premiere the season in January, and air weekly episodes through May) or adapt the format used for "Survivor" and "Amazing Race": two "seasons" within a season. The shows begin in the Fall, but are broadcast in ten/eleven episode blocks. There would be "cliff-hanger" episodes before resuming five-six weeks later in January or February. Either one of those approaches would be preferable to the "spread' em out with clip shows" situation we're stuck with now!

I agree with the Mark about how this was never a problem until the hour long show with continuous story arc same into play. That started in earnest with Northern Exposure.

I suggest TIVO or a DVR to everyone who gets upset with this. I set it to record my favorite shows with a season pass and first-run shows only. Then every night I it my "list" and see what is there. If there is no new episode of Lost or Desperate Housewives, I just watch some other show I have backlogged...usually one of the CSI's. I never get frustrated and its TV on my time... Viva la revolution!

Unfortunately, that's the breaks, kid. Rerun hell didn't matter until you started getting shows with such a strong overall arc. Nighttime soaps suffered from this, but that used to be the only shows that did. It didn't matter that MacGyver went into reruns, the episodes were more or less interchangeable and one following another didn't matter. Now, shows like Buffy, Veronica Mars, Lost, etc.. suffer because the new (and better) show model is the long-running arc. Unfortunately, the problem is made worse by sweeps, and there really isn't any way to get around that. Micro-seasons won't cut it because you'd never remove a show from the line-up that draws strong ratings even in reruns. There really is no good way around this. If you start later, you risk letting other shows build in audience in your timeslot. If you run straight through like 24 does, you lose out on potential profits (24 is an exception because you pretty much can't show reruns on 24). You can't run the season twice because it doesn't fit with production schedules and you screw up your May sweeps.

If they got rid of sweeps (which makes perfect sense to me, what good are they? Shouldn't the aggregate season-long ratings hold more sway than an artifically hyped month?) then all these problems disappear. You get your uninterrupted, or lightly interrupted season and the networks don't have to worry about screwing themselves over.

But as long as we have sweeps, we have re-run hell.

How do networks expect to have Must-See-TV when we're never quite sure when or if a new episode is going to air?

My favorite show, The West Wing, was a huge victim of this crazy mentality. As soon as you fall in love with the show, the plot begins to develop and you get hooked, the show is off for weeks at a time. Then you forget what was going on in the first place and get frustrated when you get endless reruns.

HBO does it best. It gives you the show once a week. Even if the episode is so-so, you want to come back and see it again, because you know that something good is coming. I always make time for these shows in my schedule without fault.

P.S. I also don't like this new 6-8 minutes of content, 3-4 minutes of commercials (that ABC does wayyyyy too much) thing. The drama can't possibly build and I think it is the downfall of many fine shows, such as Commander in Chief and even Boston Legal.

I dont think it frustrates me as much because the shows I watch are the ones I care about and have a record all new episodes setup for on my DVR...and I do appreciate the fact that the networks will run those "catch-up" specials every now and then(Grey's and Lost are really fond of them) which is good for some people who may not have watched all the episodes...who knows maybe I'm just too obsessed with TV that the scheduling doesnt bother me...but I will say that what HBO does with it's series(waiting years for new episodes would drive me crazy, I've almost forgotten about Entourage and when it does come back I know I'll only get like 10-12 episodes)

-wC

Last year, Alias and 24 premiered their seasons in January, and kept running 'til May, without reruns, as far as I can remember. And these shows garnered high ratings. Now, if the networks could "reserve" shows with season-long mysteries, or shows with hardly any stand-alone episodes (Lost, Desperate Housewives, Veronica Mars, etc.) for airing in January, I think that the viewers will have an easier time catching up, and who knows maybe their ratings will get higher. Just put a show with many stand-alone episodes in their timeslots like Grey's Anatomy or something.