When you create a Season Pass, you will see an option to "Change Recording Options." One of the choices is "First Run Only." If you choose that option, then your TiVo will not record repeats.

Some shows have "bad guide data" and are also repeated several times a day or week. An example of such a show right now is some of the Survivor repeats on Versus (OLN). These shows don't have specific episode information and therefore TiVo can't determine if the show is new or a repeat; in that case, TiVo records it to be safe. This really screws up my Survivor WishList.

"The Daily Show" used to suffer with this problem and some people call this the "TDS problem" over at TiVoCommunity.com.

You can use a few strategies to get past this issue:

1. Manual recording of one timeslot
2. Regular SP, just delete excess showings from To Do List every once in a while
3. Schedule a 5 minute manual recording, KAM 1, of something in timeslots you don't desire it to be recorded. I know some people did this for one of the late shows that repeated at like 3am with no guide data.

I use technique 2 for my Survivor problem -- I just purge the Versus scheduled recordings 1x a week.

Hope that helps!

Is there a way to set the system so that "first run only" is the default, rather than having to change it every time I sign up for a season pass?

Great question; I don't believe you can set that as a default.