My t.v. habits

Ok, not that I think anyone cares, but for some reason I feel the need to clog cyberspace with my thoughts on what's on t.v. this Fall.

Thursday nights
I used to love Thursday night t.v. I remember watching The Cosby Show when I was younger and then Friends and other shows when I was in high school and college. When Kevin and I were newly married, we would cook an easy newlywed dinner (i.e. frozen pizza, toasted ravioli and the like) and camp out in front of the t.v. together to watch Survivor and then CSI and even, dare I say it?, Gilmore Girls back when it was on Thursdays. This year, we have made the decision to just say no to Thursday night t.v. Well, Survivor lost its appeal to me long, long ago. CSI used to be one of my favorite shows, back when it cleverly referred to Sherlock Holmes mysteries and led viewers to actually care who did the crime. Now, it just gets more far-fetched with every year and the people who commit the crimes are just nasty psychopaths or people with really ridiculous motives...so Kevin and I are saying "Goodbye" to Thursday night t.v....which is just fine since Monday night has taken over as the night for us to vedge out together to watch shows we're both interested in.

Finally, a reason to like Mondays!
We've been hooked on Heroes since it started last year. I admit it; we wanted to know how saving the cheerleader would save the world. Really, I think we both watch it because we love Hiro. I like it because it makes me try to guess what will happen next. I don't want to just mindlessly watch a t.v. show. I enjoy overanalyzing it. And I love that the Heroes website puts a new graphic novel up every week to supplement what happened in the show. I am just geeky enough to go to it every Tuesday to read it while I eat lunch. The strangest thing about Heroes is that I constantly mutter to myself that it was mildly disappointing that they didn't show more or reveal more, but it is that same quality that keeps me coming back for more every week.

Over the summer, I got hooked on How I Met Your Mother. This show reminds me of my college friends. It doesn't remind me of any specific friends, but just the kind of weird inside jokes and conversations about things that were really meaningless but also not meaningless. The way they would say, "wait for it" was like the stupid little way any word ending in "er" could be made fun of with the rejoinder, "____-er? I barely even know 'er," but I digress. The show was one I enjoyed but could live without. It has since been replaced by....wait for it....

Chuck
I love this show. What's somewhat funny (not laugh-out-loud funny, admittedly) is that everyone who knew about this show would tell my husband he should watch it. Kevin is a computer technician and he pretty much conforms to the computer technician stereotypes. Until a month ago, he had the same haircut he had worn, well, since forever, really. He wears khakis or colored khakis every workday. He's constantly attached to his phone which is also a PDA. So, we both take great joy in really liking Chuck. Kevin thinks he could be Chuck. Kev's also really surprised that I like Chuck maybe even more than he does.

Some concerns with the show though...I could live without the gratuitous weiner girl fight each week, but I also find it funny. It reminds me of how Alias used to construct the most implausible situations for Sydney to fight in. I think as long as a show is somewhat making fun of themselves as they do it, it will remain cool, but as soon as they lose sight of that self-deprecating level, it becomes absolute nonsense.

And that reminds me of another reason I love Chuck: John Casey. I had no clue one of the agents from The Matrix could be so funny. I also have no clue when I'm going to stop inserting "Mr. Anderson" after pauses in the actor's speech. We shall see. I still have trouble refraining from adding "Dude" to whatever Keanu Reeves says. John Casey is this NSA guy who is supposed to be watching and protecting Chuck, a guy who has this super-confidential computer program installed in his brain. John Casey is the kind of guy who takes his work way too seriously and that's why he's so funny. Last episode, he tried to make a joke. And it wasn't even that funny, but when he laughed at his own joke, I couldn't stop laughing! I'm laughing at it right now even. Which makes Kevin laugh at me.

This November will mark our 8th anniversary. We only watch shows that we will watch together. If the other one doesn't really get into it, it doesn't become a priority...but the ones that are priorities get taped and watched after the kids go to bed. Come to think of it, the tape that we have been taping everything on has been in use since we would tape West Wing and watch it that way so we could rewind and figure out what it was the characters had actually said....and we stopped watching West Wing ages ago. I can't believe the tape has lasted that long. Many people have tried to convince us to get TiVo or even to get cable, but as geeky as we are, we're even more cheap. Why pay for those things when the VCR works just fine? Why pay for cable when it would only make us watch more useless television? As it is, we can find ourselves too easily distracted by the unintentionally funny drama of America's Next Top Model or Beauty and the Geek. I can't believe that I just admitted I may actually watch those shows from time to time...