Episode 203

I was actually sans cable and sans-antennae for the first 6 months or so of living out in sunny CA. It had nothing to do with it being sunny here -- as we know, the weather should not affect the amount of time one spends watching television -- but having just returned from the land of bad dubbing, I had already passed my TV withdrawal phase and was content with DVDs.

During these months, I watched all six seasons of Dawson's Creek in chronological order (not the first time I'd done it, and certainly not the last) and re-watched every episode of The Office (Seasons 1-3) over and over...and over. When I was eating lunch, I couldn't just turn on the tube for 20 minutes and see what was on -- instead, I'd pop in a DVD, and inevitably get sucked into watching more than one episode.

I don't think it's television that gets people into television. Personally, most of what I watch on TV real-time is complete crap (in a good way). It's the possibility of watching television in marathon form that really creates a true TV obsession. Even before the age of DVDs and TiVo, it was re-runs that allowed us to do that. We can all quote every line of every episode of Saved by the Bell (right?), but that's not because we have creepy, robotic memories. It's because we watch(ed) the re-runs.

Imagine if we could only see each episode of a show one time. Life would be so much more annoying.  And "Tuna, are you kidding me?!" might not mean anything to anyone.

N.B. Just so I don't get any harassment, I'm not going to promise a daily posting this season. I'll do my best, but until I have more readers than days in the week, I might have to downsize.