We did see this on Serenade.....they gave the table away and the regular people showed up at 5:45 to find their table gone.
We had early dining. Wasn't crazy about it, but since we don't consider ourselves "special" we arrived on time.
Actually, after a few days we got used to it and liked it.
We always arrived at 5 pm and I would say about 25% of people were already seated, so they arrived even earlier.