Boiling Point: We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Broadcast

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 6, 2009

Do you remember the good old days when you could predict when new episodes of your favorite shows would come on? Come Fall or Spring, a bevy of new episodes or (if Summer was your thing), brand new series testing the water would faithfully come through. Even when that schedule got shifted around a bit, you always knew that once it the ball got rolling, it rolled straight on to the end. Not so nowadays. Finding a new episode on TV is like an Easter Egg Hunt. You never know when one will turn up.

What is the deal with split seasons? Sure, the writer’s strike can be blamed for some of the harshest instances, like Battlestar Galactica or Burn Notice, but plenty of shows are just dropping weeks here and there and taking breaks. House randomly inserts a week off. Fringe is finally coming back after a several week hiatus. The new and interesting Lie to Me apparently had to take a breather and give us some space, too. The Simpsons and Family Guy also randomly slip in reruns when you least expect it. Yeah, I’m naming a lot of Fox shows, but honestly I watch Fox more than any other network. But there’s also Supernatural, a show I’m just now finding, that’s tucked a few repeats into the current lineup.

What’s the deal? Are studios trying to stretch out the length of a season? Is there some magic money making scheme at getting people to watch your reruns? Does tricking someone into watching a rerun mean you can later dominate the timezone when other shows shift into repeats? Is there even a damn reason to this rhyme? I can’t figure it out. I know for damn sure, WGA Strike aside, that this is not a production SNAFU. Losing a week during production costs hundreds of thousands of dollars – they won’t miss a week at any cost. Sure, you can schedule a break, but you build that into your post schedule.

I’m at a loss for a legitimate reason to split the episodes up like this. It seems like we’re always promised “Four new episodes in a row!” rather than a full, uninterrupted season. I cry bullshit all over this! You’re clogging my DVR, you dirty bastards. While I can’t figure out why this is happening, I can for damn sure get angry about it and do the repeat routine on flooring it past my boiling point.

What TV favorites of yours are making the maddening decision to shuffle repeats into the regular lineup?

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