"The Apprentice": New episode Wed or not?

[pilot141]

Does anyone know if the episode of “The Apprentice” that will air tonight (Wed the 14th) will be a new one (ie episide 2)?

My local NBC station has a highlight that says “Wednesday: All-New Apprentice!”

But when you dig further, the listings detail the Wed night show as “Episode 1”.

And the official website only mentions a show on Thursday, the 15th.

In addition, NBC announced at the end of last week’s show to “Watch next week for the Apprentice on it’s new night, Wednesday.”

So what’s the Straight Dope? Is tonight’s episode a repeat? I ask because I’m planning to watch it with a family with three kids so some prior planning is necessary, and I don’t want to make them go through the hassles just to end up watching what we saw last week.

[The_Controvert]

I doubt that NBC would screw with a show like that. According to my local listings, the Wednesday show is a repeat of the first episode. New episodes are on Thursdays, after Friends.

Then again, it’s possible your local station is going rogue with its schedule for some reason, but I suspect the “All New Wednesday” line is just a mistake.

Then again, I was hosed by Fox’s screwy The Simple Life scheduling so I might be wrong. Call up your local station if you really want to be sure.

[Horrifying_Howler_Monkey]

I just saw an add that said that the episode tonight is a repeat, and there is a new one on tomorrow.

[SpoilerVirgin]

Yes, NBC is screwing with the show, and CBS is screwing with NBC, and once this all gets sorted out, it will be a miracle if either The Apprentice or CSI has any viewers left at all. Don’t blame your local station or listings if they’re a bit confused.

The New York Times had a good article about this fiasco. Registration is free, but here are the highlights:

NBC announced last month that “The Apprentice” would appear from 8 to 9 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific times) on Wednesdays, starting this week, but decided to offer the first episode as a 90-minute preview last Thursday, from 8:30 to 10. To siphon viewers from the preview, CBS scheduled a special rerun of “C.S.I.” from 8 to 9, in addition to a regular, new episode from 9 to 10.

On Friday, the day NBC was crowing about the preview episode’s ratings results, CBS scheduled a special new episode of “C.S.I.” to run against the second episode of “The Apprentice” on Wednesday. Also on Friday, NBC decided to shift the second episode to Thursday night, from 8:30 to 9:30, and run in its place on Wednesday an encore of the preview episode, edited to 60 minutes.

CBS then countered by moving the new episode of “C.S.I.” to Thursday from 9 to 10, against the second half-hour of the second episode of “The Apprentice,” to be preceded by another rerun of “C.S.I.” from 8 to 9. In its place at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, CBS will show a rerun of “Cold Case.”

So as it stands now, NBC will run a shortened version of The Apprentice premier tonight (Wednesday), and the second episode tomorrow night (Thursday) from 8:30-9:30. Stay tuned for further exciting developments.

[pilot141]

SpoilerVirgin thanks for the info. I e-mailed my local NBC station and they told me that tonight’s episode is a “repackaged” version of the premier.

But they are still advertising an “All-New” episode on their website.

If they are looking to drive people away from the show, they’re doing a pretty good job.

[KidCharlemagne]

Network programmers are a dumb lot. It took them forever to come to the conclusion that there was no reason for TV to have a season. They only recently put together the idea that they might be able to make money by placing a NEW show amidst the 3-4 months of reruns of all the other shows. They still haven’t gotten the idea that they should not be putting their best shows against each other. So fucking stupid. CBS is to blame; NBC had Thursday locked up a long time ago.