Scenario 1: OK, you're a network with a fledgling series that has just won a People's Choice Award for Best New Drama and whose engaging star has won a People's Choice Award for Best New Actress and a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama. What do you do?

If you're possessed of a brain, you make sure that people who are intrigued enough by these victories to check out the show actually have something to *watch*. You make sure that the show airs new episodes while the buzz is hot so that maybe it can pick up some new viewers.

If you're ABC, you take the show off the air for three weeks, so that by the time it's back on, all the nonviewers who *might* have tuned it to see what all the fuss was about have now forgotten about it and are watching the Olympics instead.

Scenario 2: You're the same network, and said series has a two- parter. Common sense dictates that you air them on consecutive weeks. But, oh, no, not if you're ABC! If you're ABC, you air the two parts *three weeks apart*, so that even loyal fans have lost the thread of the storyline.

Scenario 3: You're the same network, and during the season, the show airs a "clip episode" to bring new viewers up to speed on its mythology and complex plot in time for the stretch run to the finale. What do you do?

Of course, you immediately air a new episode to keep the momentum going and the new viewers hooked. Right?

Wrong. If you're ABC, you take the show off the air for two weeks.

To quote critic Matt Roush from TV Guide: "ABC can barely do justice to its more commercially viable shows, airing pivotal original episodes of `Alias' against the Olympics and even the Golden Globes on the night its star, Jennifer Garner, won a surprise trophy. If Garner's character of Sydney Bristow can survive ABC, more power to her."

ABC, you are run by monkeys!!