NBC fall TV pilots coming to Video On Demand systems

School is back in session, the U.S. Open has begun, and another Bush appointee has resigned. You know what that means, don't you? It means that the new fall TV season is fast approaching. With it comes the push by the networks to promote the crap out of their new shows. Okay, so they've been promoting the crap out of them since the end of the last television season, but now it's going to start to get annoying. I'm talking about last-week-advertising-before-elections annoying.

NBC will lead this charge by making the pilots for their upcoming fall shows available on cable and satellite Video On Demand systems (known as VOD henceforth). Partnering with NBC in this venture are cable companies Comcast, Cox, Charter and Time Warner and the satellite services DirectTV and DISH Network. The pilot episodes of Chuck, Bionic Woman, Life and Journeyman, as well as a 30-minute fall preview special, will be available on September 10th.

I don't really know if this can be considered special in this day and age. Since YouTube, BitTorrent, and NBC's website itself have provided clips and full airings of the pilots previously this seems like a bit of a yawner to me. However, there are still people out there who would like to watch these pilots on a screen bigger than 20-inches. So, I guess this is good thing.