Logic of sequential re-runs

I

ivegotyoux

New member
What is the logic behind re-runs shown out of order? I guess it doesn't matter with some shows but many are serials or have some kind of backstory that is hard to follow when shown in random order.

We finally got digital cable in our area. I'm trying to watch some old series that I never saw or only saw part of in years past. (Unfortunately, we still do not get Boomerang.)

Some of the series I am trying to watch:

Jackie Chan Adventures
MIB Animated
Code Lyoko

I have season 1 of all three of these shows on DVD but that's all that is available. I have tried watching them on digital cable but they are shown in a very random order. Jackie Chan is very serial and suffers from being shown out of order but Disney XD shows episodes from different seasons back-to-back.

I could list a dozen other shows that are shown randomly, too. About the only series that I have watched that was shown in order was Gargoyles.

Is there a reason why episodes can't be run in order? If it's some kind of gimmick to make me watch more, it doesn't work. I end up giving up watching instead. It's really messed up when they show half of a two-parter then don't show the second half.
 
If anything, it seems like it would take more effort to intentionally pick episodes at random than just going through them in order.

From what I've seen, DXD is actually pretty good about airing shows in order. Jackie Chan is for the most part running each episode in order. The only complication is that the weekday and weekend runs are treated as separate and thus start at different episodes.
 
I agree. I would think that if anything, it would take less effort to just play them in order. It really only matters if the show has a strong continuity. Watching stuff like The Simpsons or Family or something like that doesn't really make all that big of a difference if the episodes are in any particular order.
 
That actually makes sense for Jackie Chan and a couple of other series I am trying to watch. Thanks!

I don't suppose you know the, um, code for Code Lyoko? :D That show seems to get run in no particular order, each episode seems to be from a different season.

How do they store episodes anyways? Are they on tape, discs, or all digital on a hard drive? They must have some kind of filing system because they know how to pull out the Christmas episodes during the holidays.
 
To play devils advocate, there's only three reasons I can think of off the top of my head to run a series out of order.

#1.) Special, Seasonal Episodes:
This one I think goes without saying. It's certainly very effective to group together all the Xmas episodes of a series and play them either over Xmas week (or if you have enough episodes) over the entire month. Sadly, I don't think this is done nearly enough anymore >.<

#2.) Catch People's Attention:
It's fair to say that in most series (especially American series), earlier seasons aren't as strong as later seasons. As such, it most certainly makes sense for series lacking very specific backstory to run episodes in such a way that you might catch people's attention.

#3.) Annoy people and make them buy the DVDs:
If a series carries backstory and a company runs them in such a chaotic order, someone might get fed up watching that series on a given network and go buy the DVDs. I think this is a more of "It happens like this by accident" then intentional planning >.<

A forth, less creditable reason is availability and access to specific episodes. If a company only has legal access to say episode 1-4, 8-11, 41,82, they'll have to run it like that; however, it would only make sense (to me) that they would still run those directly in order.

I tend to favor this last one more then any other excuse. Some new intern or new employee (maybe even an idiot employee) managed to jumble up the series and it's no longer in order. Moreover, everyone else is too lazy to fix it or doesn't know it happened to fix. Therefor, the episodes run out of order.
 
It also depends on the day that you're watching them. Sometimes channels will do some promotion for that day or week. An example, would be Power Rangers, I think one day they just showed episodes featuring the Red Ranger.

It's more popular to do something like that during a holiday or long weekend, but sometimes it shows up on just a random day.

Also occasionally, say a three-parter was suppose to be the next story arc to air, but the day before was a Thursday, they may show an episode out of order on Friday, so you won't be left hanging during the weekend. This is doesn't happen often, but I've seen it a couple of times.
 
Actually if a network picks up a show that's in syndication, I don't think that they would want someone buying the dvds. Cause if someone is watching the show on dvd, they're probably not going to watch as much when the show is on tv.
 
The only time I ever recall any shows really being aired out of order is when they were syndicated.

I remember that S3 of the 80's TMNT was randomly aired along with a mixture of the first season mini series and the S2 eps. So after a few weeks of new S3 eps, we'd just go back to the original mini, followed by more S3, with eps of S2 tossed in randomly.

The same thing went for G.I. Joe, Transformers, etc.

It was only when USA picked up the series that the shows ran in (close to) logical order.
 
What I mean is that it seems like it would take more effort for the programmers to personally pick episodes out of a hat to show, instead of simple going through episodes in numerical order. Besides, if shows are made to be episodic, what's stopping them from being played in order?
 
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