What will happen to "Remote-Free TV" when you need the remote again?

ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson was asked about Fox's "Remote-Free TV" strategy, in which two new shows this season - "Fringe" and "Dollhouse," the season's two most highly anticipated series - will be shown with limited commercial interruption, though advertisers who do get their spots in the shows will pay a premium to do so.

(The cast of "Dollhouse" looks so natural and relaxed in this photo. Almost like they're automaton ciphers or something. Oh, wait: They are.)

"I'm glad Fox is trying it," McPherson, which meant he was glad he wasn't trying it.

McPherson had a couple of good points as to logistics: If/when these shows go to syndication or appear elsewhere besides Fox, they'll inevitably have to be cut down to fit the usual advertising requirements. Which means about nine or 10 minutes will have to be excised from each episode.

And that means one of two things: If the episodes are tightly plotted, they might not make a whole lot of sense with that much material chopped out of them.

(It would take a mighty big scissors to cut that much footage out of an episode.)

On the other hand, if the shows' producers are thinking ahead to syndication, they may write a couple of extraneous, neither-here-nor-there scenes into each episode that may represent some narrative wheel-spinning that may frustrate/bore/mystify viewers.

Of course, there's a third alternative: They could write scenes offering some deep background on the characters that isn't necessarily germane to the storyline except to the hardcore viewers who divine meaning in every bit of minutiae on shows like "Lost," who will have already fully digested the series and those episodes by the time the programs reach syndication. Still, it does present J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon with an interesting balancing act.