I just saw a list of canceled TV shows for 2011. I'm not addicted to television, but I watch a fair amount of it. Maybe that's like saying I'm not an alcoholic, but I'm drunk most of the time. I suppose it stretches the bounds of credulity.
Here's the thing, my life doesn't revolve around the box. I have no appointment TV in my life. Of course, I also have a DVR. I watch very little television in real time. I record and watch later, flashing over the commercials. Is the DVR a great invention or what?
Because I record nearly everything, I'm not a slave to network programming. I don't need to be home at a specific time on a particular night to watch something I really like. I'm not sure if there is anything on TV that I would actually schedule around; until this moment, I haven't given it any thought. But what my DVR does motivate me to do is to watch a few shows I probably wouldn't bother with otherwise. I put these in the just-something-to-do category. When I don't have anything better to do, I watch them. Such a show, The Gates, was on the updated canceled list. It was a show about a gated community of werewolves and vampires, and what happens when a new police chief and his family, who are not monsters, are thrown into the mix. Who doesn't like vampires, right? I wasn't crazy over the show, but I recorded it and watched in my down time.
One show I am a little disappointed to have found on the canceled list is The Good Guys. A show that never failed to make me laugh three or four times an episode, it involved a worn-out politically incorrect police detective teamed with a young buttoned-up detective blundering their way through crime in Dallas. I found it entertaining and I'm sorry to see it go.
Gone also are two more on my list of shows to watch only if time permitted: Medium and Undercovers. I'm sure I will find a couple of replacements that I am equally unenthused about.
Among shows with a recent debut that I am liking so far: Fairly Legal (Fox) and Harry's Law (NBC). Do you notice a pattern here? My guess is that I will stick with Fairly Legal. It's fun with some very likeable characters. I'm less sure about Harry's Law. It's a David E. Kelley show. I stopped watching his Boston Legal when it became nothing more than a soapbox for his far-left politics. Harry's Law has flirted with that a little already. I'll give it another episode or two before bailing if it gets too preachy.
Things in my life must be really slow if I have resorted to blogging about my TV habits.
I was going to watch The Good Guys, but never got around to it. You can count on one hand the number of network (ABC, NBC, CBS) shows I watch and still have five fingers left over.
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