Why do some shows recap the entire season in the beginning of an episode?

New footage costs money to produce, and there isn’t as much money to go around as their used to be.

For different reasons, soap operas rehash old plot points constantly. This is to help retain viewers by making it easy for them to catch up on the action if they’ve missed past episodes. They just keep writing retellings of the same facts and anecdotes into the script.

@kevbo No, no. for instance, I started watching Haven, which is kind of an X-Files/Fringe rip-off. At the start of every episode it tells you everything that happened since the first episode. FBI woman shows up in the town of Haven (for the pilot), and then a brief recap of what happened in every episode since the first one. None of this has anything to do with the current episode. Aside from having the same characters (which is expected, since it’s the same show) and the same premise (which is expected since it’s the same show), there is nothing that someone may have forgotten from last week that would affect watching the current episode.

It’s like if you watched the last episode of Star Trek:TNG, it would start off with clips from every show that had ever aired previously.

Many of the new shows out now are of the Lost genre. That is, they are serialized ongoing plots. For them, recaps make sense in that new viewers who came in to watch an episode would not know the relationships between characters or the past action driving the current plot.

I always found this really freaking annoying. Especially when you marathon these types of shows, like jesus, ok i know what happened. Its one thing to recap the last ep or whatever, but dont keep showing me how the show began or something stupid like this.

avatar the last airbender drove me nuts with its recaps.

@marinelife That almost makes sense but I don’t think the recaps are enough to help people. Especially with Lost. You could watch five episodes of Lost in a row and still not know what’s going on. Gilligan’s Island did a better job in a 60 second song.

@uberbatman Yes, that kind of thing. I also don’t mind if a show has an episode that’s related to an earlier episode. Then the recap is alright with me, also.

I think it is underestimating, by the makers, the viewers abilities to remember what happened one week ago in their beloved series.I mean, it is one week ago, not one year…
When i watched The Wire, i was never confronted with repeating bits of previous episodes, even though that was, just like Lost, 24, and the likes, a series that told a story spread over twelve or thirteen episodes.

Flash Forward was the same way. I quit watching it.

I’m stupid I forget everything. I have the same conversations repeatedly apparently without even knowing.

Recaps aren’t so much for old/current viewers as for new ones. Many people don’t get into a series until it’s in syndication or on DVD. There’s huge money to be made by advertisers when a series is in reruns… so producers want to make it as easy as possible for new viewers toget engaged and hooked.

@Austinlad That’s sensible, I guess. At this point, though, I’d rather wait to rent it on DVD so I can fast forward through all of that.

@Austinlad Still, most of the recaps that try and recap the entire series would leave most new viewers completely confused. The dedicated viewers get it because they actually remember the series and just find it to be an odd mismatch of clips while the new are left scratching their heads.

at least thats how i was when i caught series that did this and i didnt already follow them

Mad Men does this too, even going so far as to pull clips from previous seasons. For that show, it’s a framing device so that the viewer gets the context of what the current episode will be about.

well, i’ve seen this come and go over the years and am usually perturbed. it appears to set up the back ground of the story line in the about to show episode, though sometimes it can be totally mind bending to reconize. as for entire series recap, apparantly they think we need it… :( also to fill in late comers, like those who have been on summer vacation, like now, and presumably haven’t been watching. And they’re trying to breath interest into dull stories (never cared for steven king based movies, etc., just so boring and underdeveloped – haven has been the only exception).