So much to watch, so little time

As the fall TV season launched, full of hype and temptation, Alisa Faris, 24, started making some cold, hard choices. The technology worker from Providence knows she wants to watch ''Amazing Race," ''Lost," and ''Desperate Housewives." She schedules dinnertime around ''Survivor." But ''Invasion," the ballyhooed new alien show on ABC? She's given it thought, but she's skeptical.

It airs late, at 10 p.m. And she's not sure how much science fiction she wants to watch. But mostly, there's the issue of how many shows a person can reasonably follow week after week.

''I try not to get into the new ones," Faris says. ''Or else I'll just be in front of the TV the whole time."

Such are the dilemmas of this fall's TV lineup, loaded with serial dramas, sci-fi mysteries, and elimination reality shows. (And, in Boston, the ongoing saga of a certain baseball team.) More than ever, TV is asking viewers to make seasonlong commitments, to keep track of shifting characters and complex mysteries. Viewers, in turn, are starting to watch strategically, sometimes ruling out entire shows because they've simply run out of time.

''Suddenly, there's too much choice," says Joseph Jaffe, a Westport, Conn.-based marketing consultant and author of ''Life After the 30-Second Spot," a book about alternatives to traditional advertising. ''It gets messy."

That's the beauty, from a TV network's standpoint, of the sitcom with the formulaic plotline, or the procedural crime show that wraps up neatly each week. It's easy to manage, and thus attractive to viewers like Mitch Cohen, 42, a computer systems engineer from the South Shore who tends to limit himself to shows like ''CSI." ''When I can watch it," he says, ''I will."

And that's why TV's interest in the serial has waxed and waned, says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. Ongoing story lines are risky. ''A serial is like a relationship. It demands that it be called every week," Thompson says. ''And if you don't call upon it, it gets angry with you and punishes you by confusing you."

Network executives, it's clear, have those demands in mind when they make programming decisions. Craig Erwich, executive vice president of programming for Fox Broadcasting, remembers the jitters, four years ago, when Fox greenlighted the action drama ''24." It was revolutionary TV: a real-time take on a single day that would take 24 consecutive episodes to see through.

''Asking the audience members to bite off that big a commitment is something that gives you pause," Erwich said. But the pilot was so compelling, he said, that ''you had to go for it."

The gamble, of course, paid off; the fifth season of ''24" will start in January. And sky-high ratings last season for ABC's soapy ''Desperate Housewives" and its dark mystery ''Lost" have further bolstered the form. This season, ABC has added to its serial list with ''Invasion." NBC premiered the sci-fi mystery ''Surface" and is running two versions of ''The Apprentice." CBS has new editions of its standbys, ''Survivor," and ''The Amazing Race."

Fox, meanwhile, has launched two new dramas that beg for long-term devotion. ''Reunion" follows a group of high school classmates through 20 years -- one year per episode -- and a murder mystery. ''Prison Break" follows one man's complex plot to help his brother escape from death row.

It's not as all-consuming as it sounds, Erwich insists: The dynamics of a show like ''Reunion" aren't so hard to decipher.

''This person likes that person, this person doesn't like that person, one of them's going to die," Erwich says. ''This is populist storytelling."

Still, the idea of tuning in late in a series' run, after a buzz has already built, can be daunting. Jaffe, the marketing consultant, has decided that, despite the hoopla over ''Lost," he won't start watching this season. He missed the last year entirely, and figures it's too late.

''I don't feel like I'm part of the joke," he says. ''I'm not part of the inner circle here. . . . I don't feel anything for it."

Still, he says, the networks could make it easier for viewers to catch up. One of his suggestions: Be more flexible about schedules. If a show turns out to be a hit, he says, put it on hiatus and air three weeks of reruns, so everyone can see it. (Networks have seemed increasingly willing to rerun episodes quickly. ABC re-aired the season two premiere of ''Lost" this week, just before the second episode, in order to capture more viewers.)

Another idea: Embrace the digital recording technology, such as TiVo, that has made the TV industry so skittish. Yes, DVRs allow viewers to speed through ads, Jaffe says. But they also make it easier for people to watch shows that spark their interest. He thinks networks should abandon their zero-sum ratings game and opt for a DVR-friendly model of programming, re-airing prime time shows in the wee hours of the night or on related cable channels, as Fox has done with episodes of ''24."

''If you can buy into that conceptually -- why should you ever have to miss a program again? -- then you should be able to work it out," he says. ''We'll make sure that you're taken care of."

Already, some tech-savvy viewers are using machines to help them sort through TV fare. Jen Hubbard, 30, an information technology worker from Braintree, programs her TiVo to record every episode of every new series, along with her old favorites. ''I give everyone a fair shot," she says. And then she starts eliminating, show by show.

This fall, so far, it's been ''yes" on the Donald Trump version of ''The Apprentice," ''no" on the Martha Stewart spinoff, ''yes" on ''Desperate Housewives" and ''Grey's Anatomy." She hasn't had a chance to watch the two hours of ''Prison Break" she's holding in reserve.

''Too many started at once, so I just have a backlog," Hubbard says. ''I need next weekend to catch up."

And those who discover shows years late are turning to DVDs. Alison Fournier, 24, an e-commerce worker from Natick, recently discovered ''Nip/Tuck" on F/X, so she rented DVDs of the early seasons and watched three or four hourlong episodes at a time. It's an easier way to watch TV, she says.

''It's hard, especially with work schedules, getting committed to TV," she says. ''There's only so much you can watch."

For networks, the DVD has made serials less risky, Erwich says of Fox. ''I don't think that we can rely on it, but anecdotally, I know that it helps," he says. ''I hear a lot of people telling me, 'I missed the first season of ''Arrested Development," and I caught up with it over the summer. And the same with '24.' "

But as appealing as the DVD binge can be, Thompson says, it's no substitute for the visceral need to tune in to a show every week.

''The reason the DVDs work is because the shows were hits," he says. ''They got lots of press, people talked about them. If it gets to the point that programmers at the networks start programming with DVDs in mind, there's a really problematic business plan issue there. You've got to build up the equity in these shows."

And that will only work, Jaffe says, if it's easy for viewers to find the episodes they need. In the future, he predicts, that will only get easier. Within hours of an episode's first airing, he says, it will be available everywhere -- on the Internet, on mobile phones, on the seatbacks of airplanes. The networks, he says, will increasingly be forced to adapt to viewers' schedules, instead of the other way around.

''Figure out ways to minimize the risk for your consumers, because otherwise, they're going to go to the 'risk-free' TV model," Jaffe says. ''I'll buy the DVD after the fact and I'll watch 'Lost' on my own time."