Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Talking About Television

So, Amy over at Lucy's Football was talking about television, those shows from last season that did or didn't live up to expectations, and those she's looking forward to this year. It got me thinking about my own TV-watching habits.

When I was younger, I used to LOVE getting all excited for the new fall season to start. My parents used to get TV Guide (maybe they still do?) and I would scour the fall preview issue, and plan out my ideal TV-watching schedule. Pretty much every night of the week, I was planted on the couch during primetime, and the sad thing is that looking back on it I couldn't even tell you most of what I watched. For the most part, it was just filler. Hours and hours and hours, wasted.

Which is part of the reason why, these days, I don't typically get too excited about TV. I have a few current shows that I watch. How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and Castle are the three big ones, the ones that Pat and I watch together. I also keep myself up-to-date on Glee and The Office, although I'm kind of over Glee. I'm curious how exactly they're going to include the recently graduated seniors in the coming season (I heard something about a "show within a show," which makes no sense to me, but I'm thinking that maybe they're not using the phrase to mean what I think it means), but I'll probably just watch the first episode or two and then stop.

Psych is one that I'm caught up on through Netflix, but they don't have the most recent season yet. I really liked Royal Pains when that show came out, but then we moved, and fell behind, and Netflix unfortunately doesn't have it at all (even though they have all the other USA shows *grumble grumble*), so I'm like two seasons behind on that one. I keep meaning to look for the episodes online and catch up that way, I just haven't gotten around to it.

I think it's funny how the way people watch TV has changed in recent years. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people will still sit down and watch a show when it first airs, especially the ones they're really into and want to be able to talk about the next day. But more often, it seems people just catch them whenever they have time, either online or with DVR. Which makes it harder for new shows to ride the coattails of the more established shows and build a viewership that way. Advertising and word of mouth are more important than ever, to make people go out of their way to watch something, rather than just tuning into a favorite network for an evening of pre-programmed entertainment.

It just makes me wonder, if I could have watched TV this way back then, what shows would I have actually gone out of my way to watch? And which ones was I just watching because they were there?

5 comments:

  1. As a kid I used to sit down in front of the Tv in the afternoons. There was one channel that had really good shows in my opinion so I could watch it for 2-3 hours straight until my mom got home from work. Now they only show stupid reality shows.

    So what I watched back then was tons of 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and Judging Amy. Oh yes, and Friends and The Nanny. I still watch GG and Friends every once in a while because I still love them and have them on DVD. I would like to watch Judging Amy again but they never made DVDs so no.

    What I hate about watching TV these days is, that every show I could legally watch is translated into German and I just hate it. I like to hear the actual actors voices and hear the jokes as they were intended to be.

    I still watch Bones, Glee although I'm not sure how the new season will play out, HIMYM, 30 Rock, New Girl and Cougar Town. And that's about more than enough :)

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    1. Yeah, I don't know how I ever used to keep up with more than a handful of shows. When I was listing them out up there I got to the end and thought, "Huh, I guess I watch more TV than I thought," but it's still nothing compared to when I was younger.

      I do watch older shows too, either on DVD or Netflix. It's nice to be able to revisit old favorites, or watch through a series I never saw the first time around. But again, I go out of my way to watch it, on my own schedule, instead of being a slave to the networks and then getting sucked into stuff I don't care about.

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    2. I wish I had something like Netflix or Hulu over here. But I just have to wait until stuff comes out on DVD instead.

      Oh, and I always watched too much TV and it's gotten worse since I got an internet access :)

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  2. I had a crazy dream last night that Who's The Boss was still on and their series finale was airing. Sorry slightly off topic but still related to a show I used to watch as a kid.

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    1. It's weird the random stuff that pops up in dreams. I've pretty much stopped trying to make sense of mine.

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