Cable has become a costly nightmare, so I’m cutting the cord (again). In these final days before turning in my DVR, the mad dash to watch everything I care about has revealed some interesting things.
I love Teen Wolf
I just do, and you can judge all you want, because I don’t care. For a soapy action/supernatural MTV show, it’s a lot of fun, still a little suspenseful, and surprisingly poignant. Sure, it has more loose threads than a broken loom and maybe gets a tiny bit less good with each season, but I’ll be disappointed to lose all 24 episodes of season 3 that I couldn’t bear to delete. Season 4 this June!
Trophy Wife is my second-favorite new show of the season
At first, I just liked having more Bradley Whitford on my TV, but honestly, this show about a thrice-married guy, his new younger wife, three kids and zany relationships with the exes just tickles my feel-good family funny-bone, even if it did take a massive build-up and binge-watch to realize. Sadly, The Cancelation Bear is also predicting its demise. I will not be a happy camper if this season eats Trophy Wife and The Crazy Ones.
Castle isn’t what it used to be
There was a time when, thanks to my wacky work schedule, I’d get home at 11:30 Monday night and immediately watch the Castle episode that aired a few hours earlier and then start my weekend. I don’t do that so much anymore. I’m not sure if it’s because the quality never quite came back from the lows of season four or it’s because of all the Teen Wolf I rushed home to watch instead, but I seemed to be perpetually three or four episodes behind this season. But once I start watching, I’m more than happy to be doing so! It’s kind of like get-togethers: I never really want to go until I get there.
Dads, Mom and Michael J. Fox just couldn’t cut it
Don’t get me wrong: I was also really happy to have Seth Green, Allison Janney and Michael J. Fox back on my TV in their respective shows, but there just wasn’t enough to care about here. I didn’t delete these shows unless I desperately needed space, but once I stopped watching them, I never picked them back up and probably won’t now. The Michael J. Fox Show already ate it (and for a while I wasn’t sure if it had been canceled or if I had just stopped recording it to save room for other things), the future looks grim for Dads, and Mom has already been renewed. Send some of that West Wing alum mojo Brad Whitford’s way, Allison!
Nothing escaped the occasional episode build-up, but sometimes it’s just because I was busy
I don’t really have anything bad to say about Grimm, The Middle, Modern Family, Raising Hope, The Americans or Ink Master. Well, Ink Master’s a trainwreck, but I can’t seem to stop watching it. The rest are comfort shows well into their runs. (Except The Americans which is only in its second season, but I hope sticks around).
I will (probably) never watch Early Edition
Last year, I was introduced to Friday Night Lights and when I was done, decided I needed more Kyle Chandler in my life. Right about the time I was wishing for that, The TV Guide Channel started airing two back-to-back episodes of Early Edition five days a week, and I recorded almost all of them. It’s a fun show full of 90s nostalgia (a cat delivers tomorrow’s newspaper today to a guy who then stops all the bad things from happening while not giving up his secret paper), but it’s not so good for binge watching. I still have something like 15 episodes, and I’m not going to watch them. Maybe someday they’ll stream somewhere or all seasons will hit DVD. But until that day, goodbye “Gary, Gary Hobson.”
Some things just need picking up next season
I have no idea why I stopped watching Parks & Rec and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I just did, and even though I still have them, I seriously doubt I’ll get through them before my time runs out. But hopefully the stars will align, and they’ll all be streaming in time to get caught up before next season (which will also be at the mercy of the streaming gods) gets too far under way. I’m hoping for the same thing with Agents of SHIELD, except I know exactly why I stopped watching (and recording) that: It just wasn’t that great. But on a whim, I thought I’d try to catch up on Hulu, and *just when it was starting to get good* I hit a block of missing episodes.
So there it is. That’s what the last two years of cable hath wrought for me. In related news, I’m also watching Arrow for the first time and have just hit the last season I saw of Supernatural (season six) on Netflix, so I might try to get caught up for them, too. Arrow definitely, but maybe not Supernatural, especially since I hear it gets pretty bad.
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