TV is your Friend

The new TV season is starting and I don't know if I care one bit. I watched too much last season and I'm burned out. There were actually a lot of good new shows that have premiered in the last two years and I started watching a few of them regularly. Too many, maybe. They add up.

I have always been a fan of the Simpsons and have watched every season. For those who think is isn't as good as it used to be check out last season. It was a very funny one. More laughs per episode were to be found than on any other show. I am also a fan of Law and Order and watch all three but SVU tests my patience with their sappy episodes. I am also a regular watcher of Deadwood and the Sopranos on HBO but they run irregularly and hardly follow the network season schedule.

That was about it for my TV watching. Buffy and Angel had gone off the air and I lost interest in all of the incredibly redundant "science fiction" (that just has to go in quotes) shows that have been popping up around the dial so my TV watching was on the decline. The networks were making it harder to watch TV with all of the commercials and more ads right in the middle of a show. I don't want a promo for your next show while I'm still trying to watch the current one. It's enough to make a person find something else to do.

I also separate my TV viewing from just having the TV on. Being an artist and being that the nature of making art is to be alone while working on a drawing or painting I often have the TV on for noise. Since my eyes are elsewhere I just listen to the TV and often the show is nothing I'd sit down and give my total attention to. All of the shows that I say "I watch" are the ones that I sit down and look at. Though just listening to TV I really do appreciate good dialogue.

I the last two seasons I started checking out a few new shows that were getting some buzz. Lost and Veronica Mars both made it onto my regular rotation along with a show that got no buzz but is still fun: Las Vegas. I even watched a season of Desperate Housewives. That is now four new hour shows and it nearly doubles my TV viewing. Then I started watching Bones too. Five new shows.

Another funny thing happened last year. Sitcoms made a come back. I have long since grown tired of sitcoms and the last one I watched regularly was Friends and even that tested my will with its sappiness sometimes. The whole genre was in the toilet as far as I was concerned. Then Entourage, My Name is Earl, and Everybody Hates Chris debuted and made me laugh. I even started watching How I Met Your Mother about half way through the season and now count four funny sitcoms. There is almost a fifth in The Office but I tend to side with the two guys you are not supposed to side with and think that "sympathetic" characters are the real jerks. They mock the others for being different and I would like to give their straight laced butts the occasional beating. So I don't always get along with that show.

So there you go. Another two hours of TV added. I'm almost a regular American. But eight to nine hour shows plus four to five half hour shows was just too much for me. I was glad when the season ended because I was having trouble sitting still that long. Add in some episodes of Nova, Frontline, and and occasional special on History or Discovery and I was burnt out. I haven't sat down and watched TV all summer (except for Deadwood of course). I'm still burnt out. I might just download some shows and maybe watch them later. I'll have my own TV marathon one day. I think I'll ignore the network schedules and make my own. Maybe I can work you in maybe I can't. Beside everyone knows that the Desperate Housewives are no longer cool.