Enterprise 03-20-02 episode

[Mark]

Bout time we got a new episode. (...and they're following it up with a rerun, for good measure...)

 

[Morrus]

Do you guys in the US get, like, gaps between episodes from a given series? I hear people complaniing about waiting for the next episode of other series like Buffy, too.

I guess that's one advantage we have; we might not start getting a series until a couple of months after you (which can be annoying at times, because no matter how hard I try to avoid spoilers, I can't avoid being told what happened by people who have already seen it - I never get that 'first time' atmosphere when watching anything), but when we do it's continuous - one a week.

 

[Mark]

Depending on what programming is happening on other networks (Sports, holidays, special events, etc) a regular series can have large gaps and it differs from network to network. I think this is the eighth or ninth Enterprise in four months (approx) and there have been reruns in between.

There can also be weeks where there is something else entirely, perhaps to introduce a new show to a "like-minded" (as assumed by programmers) audience (not many of those, if any, for Enterpise, I think).

It can be very frustrating when you take the time to forego other activities for a favorite show only to find out you missed the promos that would have told you this week would be a rerun.

 

[Crothian]

There's this ingenius (read stupid) idea of sweeps. During certain times of the year (November, Febuary, and May I think) is when they decide the advertisement rates. Or something like that. So, during these times all the networks place the new shows and the best shows. In between we get some reruns and some new shows. This is a big problem with the networks. Cable shows hold their own schedule. HBO for instance usually airs new shows during the time when others have reruns.

Do they air reruns during the other times over there?

 

[Morrus]

Do they air reruns during the other times over there?

Well, taking Buffy as an example.

Season 6 didn't start here until January (on cable/satellite). Once it started, though, it's been a case of one episode every Thursday night at 8pm, followed immediately by Angel (used to be perfect when the two shows used to cross over from time to time). Both series run from start to finish, one episode a week, until the season ends. That pretty much happens with everything (both domestic stuff and US imported stuff).

Sticking to the Buffy example, each show is reshown on the following Saturday. During the week, an older season is running on some other channel (I don't know which season) - same sort of thing, one a week.

With US imported stuff, often reruns happen daily in order. A while back, the entire Buffy series from seasons 1-5 was shown on BBC2 at 6pm every day. Same with Friends - Thursday nights is the new episode every week (repeated on Sunday), while older seasons are shown daily in order earlier in the evening.

I don't know how it works out like that, or how the advertising etc. works over here, but that's the result. It obviously works very differently over here to over there, though.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Pre-empted by basketball here. Have to wait 'til Saturday.

Sweeps weeks here in the US are great at the time they're going on, but make the rest of the season suck. Some shows they pull from the schedule, usually because they aren't doing well and they want a stronger show to bolster the time slot. Dark Angel is a good example. Damn, but that show had gaps so long between episodes - even re-reruns! - that I got out of the habit of watching it (Enterprise is kind of getting that way with me, what with the basketball and the re-runs). Which is something that isn't unusual - a weak show is pulled, people get out of the habit of watching, and when it returns, it's even less watched than before. Sometimes a selling point for a show is for the network to say that new episodes will air for X amount of weeks - they did this with 24, for example.

 

[Thornhammer]

Do you guys in the US get, like, gaps between episodes from a given series? I hear people complaniing about waiting for the next episode of other series like Buffy, too.

I guess that's one advantage we have; we might not start getting a series until a couple of months after you

You also get some DVDs a lot faster than we do. UK already has Futurama and Family Guy boxed sets.

That's REALLY irritating!

-Thornhammer

 

[Jamdin]

Great seeing Angel's archnemsis Holtz playing the hunter leader on tonight's episode of Enterprise. Keith Szarabajka is a great character actor who does voices too. Check out his credits at http://us.imdb.com/Name?Szarabajka,+Keith

 

[Mark]

Looks like we'll be seeing some Ferrengi next week...

 

[Talaysen]

But there aren't supposed to be any!

The Ferengi were first encountered around the time of Picard and Riker. As I recall, when Picard was in command of the Stargazer, and the Ferengi attacked it, they were *completely* unknown.

*Sigh*

I've been ignoring most of Enterprise's continuity issues so far - most really haven't been so bad - but this is just ridiculous. Is ANYONE at Paramount even TRYING to make this show conform to the existing story?

I know, I know..."repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, you should really just relax'"...