stop. start. stutter.

We don't have TV.

Okay, that's not exactly correct. We have a television set. It sits over there in the corner, and it is hooked up to a Playstation 2 and the second consecutive DVD player to die on us this year. (I feel sometimes like we need one of those things like you put on the dishwasher to tell other members of the household if it's clean or dirty. The DVD player is currently: Dead.) What we don't have is cable, and the building we're in doesn't get network, and I'm not entirely sure how to get the TV to receive network if I wanted it to.

This basic fact of my life -- I haven't owned a functioning television hooked up to a cable broadcast since I moved out of my parents' house lo these many years ago -- confuses people. A lot. They always stare at me blankly, unable to comprehend a life in which someone could not watch TV. I'm not judging you! It's not an idealistic thing! I just don't value cable enough to consider paying for it, don't hold a regular enough schedule that I can reliably be certain to catch any shows I'm interested in, and really don't value TV enough to pay for TiVo and watch my stuff whenever.

Instead, I watch TV through the secondary distribution model: I iTunes-download stuff as it comes out (or torrent it if it's not up on the iTMS -- come on, people, I want to give you money here, work with me!), and then buy the DVDs when they come out if I like it enough. (This is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in the outcome of the writers' strike, since I know that both these models don't compensate the writers as much as broadcast.)

So what do I look for in a TV show? One of two things:

a). A thoughtful, well-characterized, engaging show that says interesting things about our society while telling a good story, or,
b). Outrageous, over-the-top fluff that I can put on and pay .5% of my attention to while I'm knitting.

This season I'm watching American Gladiators, The Apprentice, House, LA Ink, and Supernatural, and filling in back-seasons of NCIS (I can't just start watching something, I have to start from the beginning), with Battlestar Galactica next on the "to be caught up with" list. I also have a season of High Stakes Poker to catch up on, and am flirting with adding Lost and Heroes, although people whose opinions I respect are telling me that Heroes has some really troublesome subcurrents that will probably make me want to punch it in the nuts.

Deciding which show falls into which category can be left as an exercise for the reader.