Synchronicity

Q. I wrote a spec, but the show just did a similar episode!

If you have a movie with a similar hook to something that just came out, you're pretty much sunk.

With a TV spec you're in better shape. You are trying to show you can write the series, and your spec still accomplishes that. Many of the people reading your spec will not necessarily know every episode of the series, so they may not know that you're covering the same ground.

So you can still send your spec around. However you probably want to think about coming up with a new spec script soon.