Suckered by pre-peats

Pre-peat: A first showing of an episode of a TV show online or on another channel the week before it’s due to air on it’s main network (example Torchwood on BBC Two and Three).

I have a confession to make - I’m a complete sucker for the ‘catch it now on…’ episodes. I don’t know the name for them but for the sake of this post I’ll call them pre-peats (a sort of repeat before it happens).

You know the ones I mean - you’re watching something on BBC One or BBC Two and the next thing you know - it gets to the end, you’ve loved it (think Spooks, Torchwood, Life on Mars) and the announcer says “catch the next episode on BBC Three right now”.

I’ve always said to myself, before a new ‘hot’ series starts, that I WON’T watch the next episode straight away - but I never manage it - I always turn over in the end.

The reason I don’t like doing it is because, once you’ve switched over you have to watch EVERY episode on BBC Three and the BBC Three episode is ALWAYS on a lot later than the BBC Two episode (although with the iPlayer this isn’t such a big deal).

It also makes office conversations a pain as most people seem to manage to just watch the BBC Two episode - so they’re all talking about something I watched the previous week and I end upn ot being able to keep up or not being able to chat about what I’ve watched.

After all - part of the fun of a big show (and one of the reasons I watch shows as they go out) is so I can talk about them the next day and analyze them with my friends.

The other problem with the switching over is that in the last week of the shows run (or what SHOULD be the last week on BBC Three) the show is dropped or a repeat of the BBC Two show (the one I watched last week) is shown.

This means I have a whole week at the end of the run where I can’t watch the show - a right pain!

So far with Torchwood, and five episodes in - I had managed to avoid switching to BBC Three and I’ve still managed to avoid switching to BBC Three.

But what I haven’t avoided is the iPlayer - my wife was catching up on Eastenders and Corrie (a months worth filling up our Sky+ planner) so I decided to find something on the iPlayer to pass the time.

I was surprised to find Torchwood: Reset and VERY NEARLY didn’t click on it - but I did, got into it (it’s the one where Martha Jones comes back [in the trail so not a spoiler]), watched it and loved it.

Now I have a dilemma - do I carry on watching the series on BBC Three from next week (and suffer all the consequences I’ve outlined above) or do I skip next week, not watch Torchwood for a week and get back to normal on BBC Two the week after?

Does this also mean I have to avoid iPlayer for the next seven weeks of Torchwood’s run? Oh and how brilliant is this series of Torchwood - proper grown up SciFi.

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