A few words about TV

The more people I meet in life–socially, as part of my writing jobs, and anywhere in between–the more I encounter a widespread tendency to shrug off TV, to hand-wave it away as a mindless distraction from people’s Serious daily lives. “Oh, I don’t really watch TV,” has become a kind of catchphrase, a motto that lets the questioner know that there’s no time for the mindless frivolity of television, not when there’s work/child rearing/Tai chi/journeys of self-exploration to be had, apparently every minute of the day.

I’m convinced that many of these people are lying. Well, not exactly lying. They do flick on the TV, likely for multiple hours a day. But they’re probably engaging in a kind of passive TV-watching: cooking dinner with CNN on in the background, folding laundry with the ballgame on, that kind of thing. They’re not watching TV so much as they’re near it.

I tend to approach TV differently. Like everyone else, I don’t have unlimited free time. So my philosophy is, if I’m going to use precious minutes or hours watching, I want to be fully engaged, and only watch what I want. To that end, I’ve been a huge proponent of two modern, TV-related conveniences for years: TiVo and Netflix. I’m aware that neither of these allegiances make me unique. In fact, they’re both great examples of how closely I dovetail to the lampooned targets of Stuff White People Like.

Like one of those quintessential white people, I am now going to brag about how much I like TiVo, with this statement of customer allegiance: I’ve had one since 1999, which is pretty much the stone ages of DVR technology. Not only that, but I still have the original unit from nearly a decade ago. Not only that, but after a while I grew so dissatisfied with the measly 14 hours of memory that my TiVo possessed that I packed it into a box, took it with me on a plane ride from LA to Seattle, bought a new hard drive for it, gave it over to my techie friend Derek, watched him crack open the TiVo box, attach the unit to two computers, and turn it into a Franken-Tivo, one that suddenly had 150 hours of memory, more than 10 times what it had before Derek accepted my all-you-can-eat sushi lunch for TiVo surgery offer, then flew it back with me to LA.

You can probably see what I’m getting at here. I hate having TV on just for the sake of having it on. So through the use of TiVo and Netflix (which has the added White People cachet of technically not being TV watching, since you can pop that episode of Entourage into your MacBook rather than staring at your flat screen), I’ve been able to master the medium, to a large extent. What this philosophy has done is make me a gigantic fan of a select number of shows–and a complete outsider on many others. Basically, all I watch are the shows on my TiVo season pass, the shows I choose to add to my Netflix queue and watch (a few episodes at a time), and as many sporting events as I need to stay informed in my job.

Here then, in true Facebooky, “hey, here’s the stuff I like” style, are the shows I watch/have watched (if they’re over), in no particular order–not including sports. I’ve also included the medium with which I consume/consumed each show, basically TiVo season pass or Netflix.

Current

The Daily Show (TiVo)
The Colbert Report (TiVo)
Mad Men (TiVo)
Damages (TiVo)
Rescue Me (TiVo)
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (TiVo)
30 Rock (TiVo)
The Office (TiVo)
Robot Chicken (TiVo)
South Park (TiVo)
The Simpsons (TiVo)
Family Guy (TiVo)
24 (TiVo)
Law & Order (Tivo)
Law & Order: Criminal Intent (TiVo)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TiVo)
Entourage (Netflix)
Weeds (Netflix)
Flight of the Conchords (Netflix)

No longer on air

Arrested Development (TiVo season pass)
The Wire (Netflix)
The Sopranos (Netflix)
Six Feet Under (Netflix)
Deadwood (Netflix)

Seems like a lot, don’t it? It isn’t, really, not when sliced and diced into compartments of life. Netflix shows are almost always viewed while running on a treadmill at home, a handy convergence that allows me to avoid becoming a sloth despite working from home in shorts and a T-shirt every day. The TiVo shows will often sit for weeks at a time in the box’s memory, waiting for the requisite leisure time that will allow me to view them. Not counting sports viewing, I’d say I probably average 2 hours a day of TV watching, and that’s being home all day (or almost all day), every day.

Here are some other things you might notice from this list:

–I don’t watch any reality shows. This isn’t some badge of honor or anything–I just don’t find real people compelling on TV. Actors are paid to entertain, and they do a good job of it. Rob from Natick dodging sharks in Fiji just holds no appeal for me.

–I don’t watch (insert name of “Holy crap, how could you not watch?!” show). Lost is the one that gets the most jaw drops. It’s on my future Netflix list, just haven’t gotten to it yet. From the leaked details I hear from friends, though, it may not necessarily be the kind of show I’d like.

–Most of the shows I watch air on cable. I don’t get HBO, Showtime or any other enhanced cable/satellite channels, preferring to invest my extra TV bucks in MLB Extra Innings, NFL Sunday Ticket and similar sports packages. That means all the great shows that become office water cooler talk are the ones I’m consuming later, sometimes years later (Six Feet Under being a prime example, also The Sopranos and The Wire).

The end result here is that the shows I watch, I really, really like. If I don’t like them, I chuck them from my TiVo pass list or Netflix queue and either look for a replacement or drop my list by one. As is my right as a solid citizen, then, I believe it is my privilege–no, my duty–to prosthelytize people into watching the shows that I watch.

It also makes me opinionated when it comes to something like The Emmys. Oh I won’t watch the actual Emmys awards show, since it’s not on any of my queues. But I will become indignant if the critics don’t agree with my shining beacon of a TV opinion. Which is why I was so heartened to read this Salon.com Primetime Emmys article, which pretty much backs up all of my life TV choices.

Look, I’m not saying you’re misguided/crazy/hopelessly out of touch if you’ve never felt the grip of The Wire, marveled at the comic genius of The Colbert Report or gotten sucked in by the Flight of the Conchords episode where they sing “Business Time”.

Actually, wait…that’s exactly what I’m saying. Take the time you waste gawking at shows that you don’t really want to watch but happen to be on, and apply it to one of the shows on my list (The Wire, The Colbert Report and Flight of the Conchords my top three recommendations). You won’t need to give up your Macedonian folk dancing classes to do it. You’ll just be spending your TV time more wisely.

And if you end up not liking my recommendations, I’ll buy you a beer. Which we can then consume watching Stephen Colbert explain to all of us how bears are godless killing machines.