overthinking the idiot box

February 27, 2006

Letter from the editor
This is what happens when you're not watching the Olympics

This might come as a shock to y'all, but I don't watch a terribly large amount of TV; I'm not a casual channel-flipper, and on an average day will watch an hour or two at most of commercial-less TiVo. Thus, it's been impossible for me to get into the Olympics this round-about, because beyond the hi-jinks involved in figuring out which NBC subsidiary is airing what when, it's not my habit to flip on the TV for three hours at a time. The glimpses I've seen in restaurants and bars have been genuinely exciting. I am very much in support of athletic events that involve people going very fast down icy surfaces. It just wasn't in the cards this year.

However, because I'm not watching the Olympics, my daily hour or two of new drama or comedy has disappeared under the boot of the rerun. What the hell, TV!? Where you been? A whole week with nothing but a Project Runway reunion show? Lame. It's like you want me to watch things that I've never had a chance to watch before. Or, I suppose, read books. However, TV, I suspect you'd prefer I do the former.

This episode, we talk about two shows that most of America is not watching; well-liked, well-written staples of two networks so fraught with failure that they're being combined into one single network. The fate of all network programming is unclear at this stage in the season, and while it would be nice to assume that Everybody Hates Chris and Gilmore Girls will make it to the CW, there's no way to really be sure. But there's so much to discuss in both shows, and that alone ought to give them a shot at one more year.

Not that that's ever meant a damn before, in this cruel world of ours. But hey, we're in the mid-season rerun slump, and to quote some advertising genius, reruns of a show you've never seen are still new to you. Maybe you could take this opportunity to give something beyond your favorites a shot, especially now that the Olympics are done. See how they're kicking it on networks rarely perused.

Or, you know, read a freakin' book. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life.

-Liz Shannon Miller

Return to Season 2, Episode 11.