1. They're trying out other TV shows in DS' time slot to see if any produce the same or better ratings.
Always a possibility. But they pre-empted DS for much of last December by replacing it with different shows, and that didn't seem to affect DS in any way.
2. Knowing how close we are to the end of the series, with only the remainder of 1840 and 1841PT storyline left, is it possible they're stretching it out as long as they can so DS ends around the end of 2003?
Actually, by pre-empting DS so much in October, it will run into January as it is. And by the time they pre-empt for Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and who knows how much of December, this run *could* even last into February.
While rumors have stated that DS will not run on Sci Fi again (or that it will, LOL), there's no way of knowing until the series ends its third run and we see what happens.
Believe it or not, this is Sci-Fi's fourth run of DS (Eps #1-#1245 - 09/25/92-03/17/95, Eps #1-#1245 - 03/17/95-09/25/97, Eps #189-#1245 - 01/04/99-05/16/01, and now Eps #1-#1245 - 05/17/01-??/??/04).
Personally, I'm not counting on another run. I believe Sci Fi has been kind to our show, in some ways, by keeping it on for so many years. We have to accept that it won't remain a permanent fixture on that network.
Well, with the exception of the 15 months between 09/26/97-01/03/99, DS has been running on Sci-Fi for just a few days over 11 years, which is more than twice as long as it ran originally on ABC, so I suppose we can't really say too much if they were to drop DS after this fourth run and decide to never run it again. But I'm still hopeful that DS might continue into a fifth run...
For the first two runs we knew that Sci-Fi's contract with Worldvision was for a five year exclusive run, and that's exactly how it worked out (09-25/92-09/25/97). But Sci-Fi hasn't ever publicly stated how long their current contract with Worldvision runs, so we have no way of pinning down when it might end. However, the only way the fourth run could end on or before 01/04/04 (a four year exclusive run: 01/04/99-01/04/04) is if they don't pre-empt DS at all in November and December. And what's the likelihood of that?
Time will tell...