Tool 'Undertow'

I want to write about something close and dear to my heart. One of the things that keep me hoping for another day on this earth… Television.

Say what you want about wasting my life sitting and watching some fictional world unfold in front of me. I don’t care. If you’re an avid reader, then you really have no argument. You’re just as bad. Just because you read and visualize the words in your head doesn’t allow you to mount some high horse.

I don’t care for the average ilk that’s offered by the major over-the-air networks. That’s easily digestible crap for the masses. They don’t offer much in the lines of making the viewer think and dissect the story lines for insight or predictions. Like I’ve said many times… If you’re gonna waste your time watching television, make it quality television.

I’d like to write about binge watching.

I don’t like to do it, but sometimes it’s an unnecessary evil.

And then there’s the revisit binge watch. I recently did that with all four seasons of the great and mostly forgotten ‘Newhart’ series. I haven’t seen most of those episodes for something like twenty years. ‘Newhart’ was the ‘Green Acres’ of its time. It was doing well in syndication until a juggernaut by the name of ‘Seinfeld’ knocked it to the side. ‘Newhart’ was cast to the ditch like syndication road kill. And that’s really too bad. The comedy was top notch and still gets me laughing today.

I found myself doing a little binge watching the other day. The Chigger was camping out with friends and family this weekend at a bluegrass festival in Denton, NC. I opted out of it because for one thing, I DON’T CAMP. And the one day pass for a show was $40 was the other reason. I can easily fork over that kinda chunk for a rock/hard rock day, but listening to bluegrass all day would cause me to have a “Sheer Heart Attack”.

That’s a Queen reference for those of you that do not know.

Don’t get me wrong, I like bluegrass. I just can’t take 23 hours of it out of my day.

So with Chigs gone, I did a little binge watching to catch up on some of our shows. I’m up to date on ‘Under The Dome’, which is quickly losing my interest. It’s turning into the usual fare that Stephen King has been offering since the novel ‘It’. His sci-fi stuff starts off interesting enough, but then it become tedious, boring, and you just want it over with.

Then I attacked a candidate for one of my “Best New Shows of 2014” for The Less Desirables podcast… ‘The Strain’. I didn’t get caught up yet, but I’m totally digging their take on vampires. It remains mostly true to common lure and they’re not flying thru treetops or glistening in sunlight in the pursuit of teenage love.

I still have ‘Ray Donovan’, ‘Masters Of Sex’, ‘Dallas’, and ‘Hell On Wheels’ to catch up on. I’m becoming tired of ‘Ray Donovan’. I’ve been saving ‘Dallas’ and ‘Hell On Wheels’ for time with Chigger. We’re not that far behind on the latter. Only two episodes, I think.

I understand the binge watcher. Hell, Chigger could binge watch the for unlawful carnal knowledge out of ‘Orange Is The New Black’. I just like a steady rotation to work my gray matter in trying to remember story lines. I try to keep my mind sharp by working it instead of vege’ing out on one series.

But I do have a dilemma… The 2004 reboot of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ is about to come to an end on Netflix. I saw them as they all aired, but Chigger is just now watching this great series. So I must try to tie her down to a couch and send her kids out to the movies in order to finish the series with her. We have two seasons and two episodes left. It’s a tall order with her, but I think it’s something we can achieve if we put her mind to it.

Are you a binge watcher? What series really make you a couch potato?

Feel free to leave your comments.