Déjà View

By Jason Davis     May 15, 2006

I'm sure you've experienced it at some time in your life. Everyone has. You're flipping channels late one night and come across the syndicated repeats of a popular show that fill the wee hours with nostalgic hits from the days of yore. It's usually not a show you watched with any great frequency, but it's a series where you were familiar enough with the broad strokes to recognize most of the characters and have a handle on the basic premise. As you watch the show, it becomes disturbingly apparent that this is the same episode you always catch whenever you stumble across this show in repeats. I call it (as you've no doubt discerned from this week's title) "déjà view" and it really should be impossible.

It started early on for me. When I was seven or eight, I'd catch the repeats of the original STAR TREK before going off to my nightly Tae Kwon Do class. This being before the advent of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, the original series was still in heavy syndication rotation with a pretty sweet early evening timeslot. For years, it seemed like every time I switched on, I was presented with either "The Savage Curtain" or "All Our Yesterdays." Anyone familiar with the show knows these are the antepenultimate and penultimate episodes of the series' 79 show runthey also know that the late third season of STAR TREK is no place to be caught in rerun limbo. Eventually, I started saving my allowance to purchase episodes on VHS from earlier in the run and the curse was seemingly lifted, but I still cringe every time I see Captain Kirk teaming up with Abraham Lincoln...

The phenomena didn't end there, of course. Over the years, certain episodes of shows I vaguely knew would taunt me through repetition and I'd eventually give in and watch the show religiously until the series was exhausted and my mind was swimming with the scope of the show. For SEINFELD, it was "The Soup Nazi" (yeah, I was late getting into that Must-See icon). For MAD ABOUT YOU, it was "Up in Smoke, Part 1" wherein the Buchmans slip into an alternate reality where they never marryand let me tell you what a bizarre take on that series I was left with until I watched a little more...

For years, I thought this sort of thing was just happening to me, but then I started mentioning it to others and the experience seems to be a common plague for those who devote any time to watching television. SEINFELD was a popular entry with a lot of folks sighting one or another episode as "the one they always see." There was a short space of time when I became convinced that "The Zone," a dreadful episode of HIGHLANDER from the second season was the only one I'd ever see for as long as I lived. A friend of mine had similar difficulties with the sword-swiping series, but at least she was stuck in the late fifth season where the show was at its peak. Another friend discovered that paying for déjà view was not out of the question when she repeatedly caught Ralph Cifaretto's brutal murder of Bada Bing stripper Tracee in the notoriously graphic "University" episode of THE SOPRANOS.

So, it's not just me. I can't help but wonder if it's just one of those universal constants built into the universe to annoy its inhabitants. It flaunts probability since most show's in syndication have at least 100 episodes meaning that the chances of seeing a given one are one-percent. To then see the same episode repeatedly, is a truly remarkable feat that might make a weekend in Vegas seem like a sure bet. Whatever the case, please post recollections of endlessly repeated episodes below and e-mail me your thoughts on this year's TV offerings for TV Wasteland's end of the year wrap-up. The address is wastelandjason@hotmail.com. Tell me what you liked or didn't like. What was the best show of the year and which characters made you laugh or cry?

MONDAY, MAY 15

24 (8 PM PST, Fox) "Day 5: 4:00AM 5:00AM" Another day in Jack Bauer's life draws toward a close and your humble columnist wonders why Fox can never let a show die with grace and dignity...

PRISON BREAK (9 PM PST, Fox) "Flight" PRISON BREAK becomes THE FUGITIVE as the series re-tools its format for next year's on-the-run escapades.

TUESDAY, MAY 16

SCRUBS (9 PM PST, NBC) "My Urologist" With a title like this, this episode must be good. Add the fact that J.D. has a thing for the titular character and a winner is guaranteed.

THE UNIT (9 PM PST, CBS) "Morale, Welfare, and Recreation" Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the longest episode title of the year!

HOUSE, M.D. "Who's Your Daddy?" House tries to verify the paternity of a friend's alleged daughter.

SCRUBS (9:30 PM PST, NBC) "My Transition" The fifth season wraps up with a decision on the name for Carla and Turk's baby while another character eagerly awaits the results of her pregnancy test. Please Bill, don't give Elliot the Keith-spawn...

THE UNIT (9 PM PST, CBS) "The Wall" A Bosnian war criminal is brought to justice, but his escape jeopardizes the life of a Unit memberI smell a cliffhanger...

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17

ALIAS (8 PM PST, ABC) "No Hard Feelings" With Vaughn and Sark back in the picture, it looks like the show's headed for one last hurrah.

LOST (9 PM PST, ABC) "Three Minutes" The traitorous Michael leads a castaway army in pursuit of the Others while Locke suffers a crisis of faith with his button. My money is on the Others being a utopian society who swayed Michael to their noble vision of life after pointing out the evils of his former comrades.

INVASION (10 PM PST, ABC) "The Last Wave Goodbye" The series makes its farewells uncertain of its future, though there are rumblings that the CW may take it onboard if ABC gives it the thumbs down.

THURSDAY, MAY 18

ER (10 PM PST, NBC) "Twenty-One Guns" The 1,037th season of ER drags to an end with one of the hospital staff missing after a hostage situationand no one cares. What was I saying about Fox and dignity?

FRIDAY, MAY 19

DOCTOR WHO (9 PM PST, Sci Fi Channel) "Boom Town" The Doctor, Rose, and Jack arrive in modern Cardiff only to discover the villainous Blon Fel Fotch Pasameer-Day Slitheen has been elected mayor. For anyone who felt the two earlier Slitheen episodes fell a bit short of the mark, this installment downplays the farting and presents a pretty nice character piece.

NUM3ERS (10 PM PST, CBS) "Hot Shot" Don investigates two staged drug overdoses in the second season finale.

SATURDAY, MAY 20

DOCTOR WHO (7 PM GMT, BBC1) "The Age of Steel" On a parallel Earth, the Doctor seeks to save humanity from the Cybermen.

DOCTOR WHO CONFIDENTIAL (8 PM GMT, BBC3) "Mickey Smith: From Zero to Hero" Noel Clarke and others discuss the evolution of the latest TARDIS crewmember.

SUNDAY, MAY 21

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (9 PM PST, ABC) "Remember, Part One" The ladies of Wisteria Lane recall how Mary Alice Young brought them together.

THE SOPRANOS (9 PM PST, HBO) "Cold Stones" Carmella reconsiders her life while Meadow moves house.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (10 PM PST, ABC) "Remember, Part Two" The flashback continues with Wisteria Lane's dearly departed making guest appearances.

BIG LOVE (10 PM PST, HBO) "Where There's a Will" Nicki and Margene draw up their wills while Bill and Barb receive social recognition making their lifestyle increasingly more difficult to hide.

HUFF (10 PM PST, Showtime) "Radio Silence" More psychiatric fun with the Huffstodts.