Also, next Sunday's show is scheduled to be the final fresh episode until September, when a 22-episode commitment begins, and there may not even be any reruns.

May is a sweep month, too, and by resorting to reruns now, the networks will still have a few fresh episodes of their hits to show then.

That spigot could soon run dry as DreamWorks runs out of fresh episodes to sell to stations.

Would die-hard fans have the patience to wait through a long interregnum for fresh episodes?

Much of the additional income they make comes from sales to foreign broadcasters, who want fresh episodes every season.

That arrangement would provide fewer, but fresher, episodes.

The network's lone concession to 52-week thinking is the decision to leave "Alias" on the sideline until January, when it will return with 20 straight fresh episodes.

"E.R." finally returns tonight with a fresh episode after more than a month of repeats.

For several weeks the channel had very few fresh episodes to show, and episodes of the game show 3-2-1 were screened in its place.

Of course, all that was achieved without any fresh episodes of"L.A. Law" and "Knots Landing."