Web Rewind Blues

Episodes of TV found at the network's Web sites could have been the greatest idea since sliced bread, if these things worked half the time.

But have the wrong Internet platform, the wrong type of computer, etc. and trying to download these episodes are more trouble than its worth.

This weekend I tried downloading from ABC, NBC and Fox, each with varying degrees of success.

Only with ABC was I able to use my office Mac with its high speed connection. NBC and Fox won't even work. However, with either the Mac or Windows platform, my viewing of last week's installment of "Ugly Betty" was choppy most of the time, with long gaps where the download would just freeze. It really made watching it unenjoyable.

With NBC, their "two-minute recap" of various episodes works fine with the Mac platform. But try downloading the full episode and nothing seems to work. Eventually, I was able to watch last week's "Friday Night Lights" on my PC. But my brother tried to find previous installments of "Kidnapped" on NBC's site, and could only find the most recent. So for the rest of us who missed a couple of installments while NBC yanked it off Saturday nights, we're pretty much screwed in trying to catch up.

Thanks again, NBC. There's no excuse not to put all of the previous episodes online.

Fox refused to download at all on my Mac when I tried to catch up with last week's "Bones." Eventually, after jumping through a lot of hoops downloading various extras, I was able to get it to run on my PC. It actually ran the most smoothly of the three networks.

At some point I'll try CBS and CW down the line to see what they offer. But if networks are trying to increase their Web traffic by making previously run episodes online, they need to make sure the episodes download correctly on all platforms, and keep all of the episodes on the Web.

FAREWELL TO "JUSTICE?": Fox's "Justice" is listed in your print editions of The Telegraph, but a quick check online with TV Guide shows that it's being pulled for a "House" rerun (Fox, 9 p.m.) from last season. The "House" rerun is arguably the cleverest one from last season, in which House tries to diagnose a case while playing in a poker tournament.

"Justice" is a decent show, though it has spent most of the year long on procedural and short on character development. It hasn't found an audience on two different timeslots, a shame because the rest of Fox's development slate for this year has been pretty awful thus far among the new shows.

WHAT ABOUT GOOD SHOWS?: "What About Brian" (ABC, 10 p.m.) has been given a full-season pickup despite so-so ratings. I'll admit, I've yet to watch a single minute of this show, but it's a little frustrating to see since ABC likely won't be picking up "The Nine."