A Statement About Me Being Late to the Party. Per Usual.

I think I have officially given up on television.

And now I have to clarify, because considering that my last post was about Lost, you realize that that statement cannot be as absolute as it first appears.

Here's the thing: watching shows when they air on television is kind of stupid, inconvenient, and a waste of time. The fact that I have to adapt my increasingly erratic schedule to when the networks deem is the proper time for me to watch a show (and they show such excellent judgment-- I'm looking at you, NBC) is just... not cool.

So this is what people have been talking about ever since the Writers Strike and the AMPTP announcement that there was no proof that alternate media would prove viable and monetarily fantasmagorical. The AMPTP, I think we can all agree, was incredibly, stupidly short-sighted in this regard.

No one watches every show they love in the original time that it airs anymore. Between the much more important and time-sensitive matters in people's lives and the counter-programming of the aforementioned favorite shows against each other (Hi Lost and American Idol. Sorry, AI. I'm done with you for the season because you'll actually be back next year), it's simply impossible to watch everything as it airs.

I personally have not seen my favorite shows on television since I returned home from The West. Thursday nights are one of my only "quiet" nights of the week, and sitting down to really enjoy an ep of 30 Rock and The Office is just not in the cards. Why am I not freaking out about this? Because Hulu exists. And if the eps start disappearing off of there, iTunes sells them for $1.99. And if I am still not in that much of a rush, they're on my pre-pre-order list on Amazon. We don't live in the time of "if you miss it on television, you'll have to try to catch it in reruns." We live in the time of "I'll definitely see it one way or another."

Which brings me to my final piece of wisdom for the day: New shows. I recently saw a Tweet by a romance author (apologies-- I don't remember which one) who said that she uses the lapsed time between the release of a book in hardcover and its release in E-Format to read the reviews and to decide if she really wants to read the book. I feel the same about television shows. I'm not going to commit myself to something that's a) going to get cancelled after 5 episodes or b) could have an amazing pilot and nothing else going for it before knowing what I'm getting in to. I just finally downloaded The Good Wife, because it's now a well established fact that it's a kick-ass show and will be picked up for next year.

So who cares if I'm a little late?