Thursday, November 09, 2006

Why I hate TV

I've spent the last 5 or 6 years not watching TV. Not really out of spite, no socio-political reasons...just simply personal reasons.
  • Money. Why spend money on cable when I could buy books?
  • Commercials. I have a love-hate relationship with commercials. Once, they're adorable mini-movies. Ad nauseum, they're, well, just awful.
  • Time. I found that if I sat down to watch a 30-minute show, I'd sit down early, 'cause I didn't want to miss anything...and for some reason just keep watching. (I don't have an addictive personality. Really. Maybe only with moving images...)
  • Family. I have a family that doesn't turn the TV off when I go visit. As a teen, my sister used to come home from school, turn on the TV, go down the street and have tea with a neighbour for 2 hours, come home and yell "Hey, who turned off the TV? I was watching it!" (I wish I were exaggerating. She's better now. Some.)
  • Control. I want to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it. Not Tuesdays at 9. Yes, I could use a VCR...but then I still have to remember to program it, and find time to watch it. Maybe Tivo is for me -- but then we're back to the money issue. So, I collect and watch movies.
Don't get me wrong. I've had my TV obsessions. I went through a period where I could not get enough of The Nanny reruns -- the Paddington Bear of TV. (No one really noticed that she was a lunatic, just like no one noticed that Paddington was a bear in a coat carrying a suitcase full of marmalade sandwiches.) And don't get me started on Babylon 5 -- the one and only show I taped religiously every night (Space showed all of Seasons 1-4 in sequence), and watched after work. [Recently replaced all of those worn out tapes with the DVDs...heaven. Come over sometime, and we'll have a marathon!]

Now, after the 5 or 6 years of no cable, we're here, and we have cable (only Basic, mind you -- but that's another issue!)...and I've been exposed to CSI.

Just an aside: Why on Earth would anyone want to go to Las Vegas? Aren't they worried about the Jessica Fletcher Effect?

Anyway -- I really like the characters, the stories...the show. So now I'm trapped. Thursday night, 9 p.m. comes along, and I am there watching my show.

"My show." Gads. Listen to me.

And tonight reminded me about why I hate TV...it was one of those shows that picked up the story lines from a couple previous ones, and left you with tasty (only to the studio execs that want people hooked!) mini-cliffhangers -- leaving me worried that I might miss the episode next week. I'm trapped. Hooked. Lost.

But at least it's only one show.

Lori
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6 comments:

  1. Metro8:24 AM

    That "one show" starts at eight and ends at ten. It's called "Grey's CSI" as far as I can tell. The first half is about lust between massively overworked interns at a hospital. The second half's usually about massively over-equipped cops, who handle more dead bodies than the medical students.

    Bloody dramas. Give me a guy who swans about the universe in a phone box saving the world any day.

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  2. Metro8:27 AM

    And if I'd known about your thing with "The Nanny" I'd still be single--Jude Law in reverse.

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  3. Anonymous9:00 AM

    I don't watch dramas -- too much of a time commitment. Real life is dramatic enough. And reality shows are all about schadenfreude. But don't get between me and my HGTV!

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  4. Anonymous11:51 AM

    You're catching on too late to watch the original: Da Vinci's Inquest, the best show that tv has ever seen. And a big time-saver, as there was only ever one of them.

    Isn't there a cable channel that's all CSI and Law and Order? There should be.

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  5. Lori12:41 PM

    I like Law & Order...reminds me of watching TV with my Dad. And yes, DaVinci's Inquest -- fabulous show. Could never find/watch it consistently, though.

    And Metro, love. The Grey's Anatomy thing is the warm-up...note the point about Time above -- I would not watch it if I were not worried about missing a moment of CSI.

    Gads.

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  6. lifeflaw12:32 AM

    I don't watch TV either; but the reason is that I am too addicted to PC! :P

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