By Matt Roush
No, you weren't seeing things Sunday night (Oct. 27). If you were among those seeking first-run diversion from Game 7 of the World Series and turned to ABC for relief, you no doubt discovered (if my e-mails are any indication) that the network had made a last-minute switch upon learning the Series had gone the full gamut. Over the weekend, ABC subbed repeats (including Alias's season opener, which was pretty excellent the second time around) in place of the previously scheduled original episodes. The episodes have been rescheduled for next weekend, since with both shows, watching the episodes in sequence is crucial. Like many of you, I am very anxious to see the new Alias, in which major revelations about Sydney's father (Victor Garber) are expected. And those who suggested that ABC probably should have scheduled a repeat in the first place, avoiding this confusion, are absolutely right.
But on the larger issues of repeats so early in the fall (another frequent source of recent e-mails), the reason you're seeing scattered repeats only a month into the new season is that we're about to enter the November sweeps later this week. For the next month, everything will either be an original episode or a sweeps stunt special that pre-empts regular programming. No repeats until Thanksgiving, after which time the schedule will be flooded with reruns until the new year.
From the glass-is-half-full perspective, the good thing about early repeats is that the inventory will be less depleted toward the end of the season. The networks have to scatter 22 new episodes over a nine-month period, and only in a very few cases anymore — thanks mostly to cost — can a show produce more than that. Reruns remain one of the more unfortunate facts of life about network TV.
© TV Guide Online 2002
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