fine whine

For me to say that I don't watch any television is somewhat deceptive. I work with a guy who actually does not watch any television, namely because he does not have one. On the other hand I do have a TV, a 27" flat screen behemoth with two tuner-PIP and surround sound from Philips. It is a pretty nice TV, though its two tuners aren't great for receiving broadcast stations. Meant for cable (or better) it seems to only support antenna tuning out of some obligation to the FCC or the fraction of homes without better reception. Like mine. So the picture's crap, even with a ten dollar rabbit ears gizmo from Radio Shack. I don't watch any television, though, so this does not bother me (well, it does bother me when Jessica expects me to get her better reception to be able to watch the news, as though I'm more masterful with the little antennas).

Nope, I just don't watch any (broadcast) television. I never got hooked on the whole reality craze (whoa, take that one out of context) nor the news nor much anything else. There are some worthwhile shows, I admit, but never when I want to see them.

Enter the DVD. The studios have realized that there are other people out there like me (and ones willing to buy the sets, not borrow them like I do) who want to watch the shows, sans commercials and the dreadful wait between airings. For those people they release sets of current and classic shows on DVD. This is how I've watched M*A*S*H, The Sopranos, Starsky & Hutch, Futurama and the Family guy, though with those last two I'd seen many an episode on a computer screen, if you know what I mean.

Recently I checked out Showtime's Dead like me's first season and the entire run of the John Lovitz Critic cartoon. Both have humor mixed into them, and take place in or near NYC, but the similarities end there... or do they? Both had made a major misstep, from what I saw, by having an episode devoted to clips of other earlier episodes.

Yes, the dreaded clip show.

These are reviled by a lot of people, and I believe there is a shark-jumping category devoted to them. I don't like them either, but for a somewhat different reason.

The way that I'm watching these shows, when the regurgitation episode pops up it is within a couple days, if not hours, of the shows it is spitting back up (digested, or not). I know my memory's bad, but I don't need a recap that soon. I'm the sort of guy who fast-forwards through the "previously on" sequences, after all.