When I was about 15, I was hooked on TV. Not uncommon, I know, but I could tell you exactly which shows were on at what time on each day of the week. I’ll grant you that those were the days of three networks and a total of about seven available stations, so this was no gigantic mental accomplishment. But still, life revolved around the TV schedule, until a year or two later, when I broke away, and pledged that I would never be a slave to TV again. For the most part, I’ve upheld that pledge ever since.

In the subsequent decades that have transpired, I have never allowed myself to become so attached to a TV show that it would interfere with, or take precedence over, my life. And there have been no shows that I would even attempt to watch regularly. Not that I’ve missed much. So-called reality shows seem to be competing to determine which group of contestants are more stupid or more greedy or more disrespectful of others. Comedy shows throw obnoxious laugh tracks at the viewers, apparently because the jokes aren’t good enough so that we’d know when to laugh without assistance.

I’ve admitted previously that I do watch a lot of sports on TV, but for the most part, it’s background entertainment, or casual viewing. And I also like to watch some of the stuff on Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel or PBS, but I refuse to pay attention to when something is on, and make it a priority to be on the couch at that time.

Occasionally, we’ll have a chance to socialize with someone, or be out somewhere, when we are told, “Sorry, we have to be/get home, because [insert show name here] comes on in 20 minutes.” My opinion of that person takes a tumble at that point, and I apologize if that might sound elitist or condescending, but shouldn’t real life take precedence over the boob tube? OK, I’ll grant an exception for something like the Super Bowl, but for a regularly scheduled show? Come on now.

Of course, VCRs and now DVRs allow us to watch what we want, when we want, and I will admit to using those devices a bit. Almost 30 years ago, I built a VHS collection of Star Trek episodes (Want to buy it? Call me!). For a short while, we used to record David Letterman each night, to play back over dinner the next day, allowing us to enjoy his humor, and skip his commercials, during hours that we were still awake. And now, we use the DVR to record two shows on a regular basis.

One is Scrubs, which our daughter introduced us to some time over a year ago. If you’ve never seen it, this show is a smart, creative comedy that is apparently going to survive cancellation by NBC by being revived next year on ABC. In the meantime, reruns of the first seven seasons air on various channels several times each day. I suspect we’ve seen all, or almost all, of the episodes by now. And some of them are just so good that I don’t mind watching them multiple times.

The second show that we record is Pardon the Interruption, which airs on ESPN2 each evening at 5:30, before we get home. It’s a fast-paced, clever, award-winning sports talk show featuring Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, that provides a more interesting way to catch up on the day’s sports news than by watching SportsCenter (which I’ve been known to do too).

But the bottom line is that if we miss one or both of those shows, it’s no big deal. We’ve found a few programs we like, and we’ll watch them if they happen to be on when we are watching TV, but it’s not a priority. After the revelation that hit me in my late teens, I would never allow it to be become one.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.