I was up with a cold. Not terrible and it gave me a few days of much needed rest.
However, it was bad enough so that any physical activity left me a wheezing mess. No problem, I thought, and resigned myself to a couple of days in bed in front of the TV. Though I’m no stranger to television, I’m not really a TV person. However, I was glad I selected one of the best cable TV deals so I could watch my favorite shows.
First of all, I’d like to take this opportunity and thank the gods of broadcasting for the bounty of reruns. Reruns are like old family photos. You’ve seen them a thousand times, and could probably go the rest of your life without ever seeing them again, but there’s just something so comforting about their familiarity that it would be a shame to get rid of them completely.
A Good Start
The Big Bang Theory was the first show I came across in back-to-back episodes. One of the things I’ve always loved about this show is the fact that it’s one of the few sitcoms that actually respects its audience. The science and nerd jokes are hip, and if you’ve grown up reading comic books and watching sci-fi, as I have, you’ll find kindred spirits in the characters of Sheldon, Howard, Raj, and Leonard.
Well, I thought, my 48-hour block of TV is off to a pretty good start, and quite by accident.
Out of such fortuity do elegant solutions arise.
The Best Laid Plans
I realized that all I had to do was find programs like this one. Intelligent entertainment is mind candy. You can’t sustain yourself on it, but it’s better than nothing. Searching the guide, I found that The Simpsons was on after this. Brilliant. Matt Groening’s series has some of the most cogent satire ever to hit the airwaves. South Park was on a bit later. Score again.
I accidentally hit the wrong number on the remote. No big deal. However, I’d landed on Bravo. Tabatha Takes Over was on. Tabatha Coffey is a British hairstylist who does for failing salons what Gordon Ramsay does for restaurants, and in much the same way. It’s not really my thing, and yet I couldn’t take my eyes off it. There’s something about Tabatha’s dynamism that is truly engaging.
After her show ended, I flipped around. I’d missed The Simpsons, and had a while to go before South Park. I found River Monsters on Animal Planet. There was a two-hour block of this show and every episode was the same. Jeremy Wade goes in search of some legendary creature of the waters and meets a terrifying series of creatures in the meantime. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
It was the same with The Biggest Loser, Dancing with the Stars, and reruns of Hoarders. These shows may not be as “intelligent” as, say, Seinfeld, but they’ve got a certain something.
How did I survive 48 hours of TV? How could I survive 48 hours without it?