3 thoughts on “Chrissy Snow Warned Us In Season 2 That She Might Leave At Any Moment

  1. It looks like a simple answer. Historically, new episodes of Network programs are be clustered around the 3 major “sweeps” periods during the Sept-May TV season (Nov, Feb, May). Season 2 was the first full season of Three’s Company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Three%27s_Company_episodes#Season_2_(1977%E2%80%9378), and it looks like after airing 14 of the 25 episodes for the season by the end of December, the decision was made to keep the ratings momentum going by running 9 weeks in a row Jan-Feb, then hold 2 new episodes for the May sweeps. Also, it’s direct competitor – M*A*S*H – historically ran all their new episodes thru the end of February (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M*A*S*H_episodes#Season_6_(1977%E2%80%9378)), so ABC programmers likely wanted to counter-program with new episodes as much as possible., yet keep a couple for May.

  2. But that doesn’t sound like a simple answer, no? It sounds like they aired way too many episodes early. Making sure the sweeps months have new episodes in standard procedure, but skipping two whole months isn’t.

  3. The prevailing thinking of TV programmers at the time would be that they had to match M*A*S*H originals – 23 new episodes in 24 weeks Sept-Feb – as much as possible or risk losing viewers with 3’s reruns vs MASH originals so they ran 22 of their new episodes in direct competition. Three’s Company was the 3rd ranked show 77-78 and M*A*S*H was 8th, so it was a horse race.
    The oddest thing about this is finding out that M*A*S*H never ran an original episode in April or May until it’s 9th season, burning off all their originals by the end of February in most seasons.

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