TV Watch

I can't say I've made that many standing appointments for TV shows since I moved out of my parent's house.

We had a weird little Red Dwarf/Doctor Who thing going on in college - but we were in college and that's what you do when your day is basically over at 3pm.

I completely missed Twin Peaks the first time around. I tried watching it once and didn't get it. I'm easily frustrated, and much prefer to watch things from the beginning so I know what the heck is going on. It's the reason I didn't watch the X-files until almost the last season, it took me going all the way back and getting season 1 on DVD then catching myself up.

I just got DVR 2 weeks ago, and I'm already wondering how I lived without it before, and am beginning to worry about how much more TV I'll now watch as a result. No tapes to mess with, no dual setting of a cable box and VCR. Just pull up the menu and select record. Handy ...

I've got my DVR tuned to record all episodes of two shows, and all new episodes of a third. I really enjoyed the first season of Deadwood (a show with language so coarse Lenny Bruce would blanche), but probably missed half of the second season. I was really dismayed Monday to learn that the third season started up about five weeks ago. I probably wouldn't know what was up, so now I need to go back to season two and watch forward to catch myself up.

Lucky Louie is another really good HBO product. Like Deadwood, it would never work on network TV for the subject matter and language alone. It's like Friends, but with people who actually look like me and my friends. The show is written, produced and starring Louis CK (who also has a really funny half-hour special out right now) and features some other great talent from week to week.

And my final fix right now is Entourage, like Deadwood also in it's third season. I could watch Jeremy Piven's character of Ari all night. Heck, Ari deserves his own spin-off. Hug It Out, or something like that. I was listening to the local sports radio station the other day, and someone referred to it as "the rebirth of Man TV." That's pretty appropriate.

I'm not sure what it says, but consistently now for the past five or so years, the bulk of what I've been interested in watching on TV has come from HBO. I wonder if it'll last?

- David J.