Tag Archives: television

Mr. DeMille, I’m Ready for My Closeup

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My life has been unusually balanced lately.

In the past, it has seemed like there were hardly enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished – even being out of work. I’d felt like I was too busy online to watch any TV, too busy watching TV to read a book, too busy reading a book to sleep, too busy sleeping to get online. It was a vicious circle from which there was seemingly no escape. This dates back years, and it was worse when I had a job, because then I was too busy working to get anything done. For whatever reason though, lately it feels like I’ve been branching out and getting lots of things done without spreading myself too thin, leading to a strange but welcome sense of harmony. I feel all Zen-like and at peace, like no goal is too distant or out of reach. Like I can take on the world, even.

I feel like there is nothing I can’t try. Never heard the word “impossible.” This time, there’s no stopping me. I’m gonna do it!

Good lord, did I just channel the spirit of Laverne & Shirley?! Schlemeel, schlamazel indeed.

Anyway…..

Take yesterday, for example. I woke up after a solid eight hours of sleep. Brewed a pot of coffee, read the paper. Watched some TV. Made a killer sandwich for lunch. Applied for a whole bunch of jobs while listening to music. Put away dishes, cleaned the kitchen, topped off the aquarium, scooped the litterbox, watched a little more TV, headed to my parents’ house for dinner, came home, chatted with my girlfriend for more than two hours, read a couple of chapters of The Hunger Games (which I finally picked up and started the other day, and became instantly infatuated with), and then went to bed. That, my friends, is a full day. And very balanced.

Oh, and I also applied to be an extra on a TV show. That came right after dinner with my parents but before the phone call with my girlfriend, if you’re keeping track.

Earlier in the day, I’d checked out Grimm for the first time. It’s a drama on NBC centered around a homicide detective who learns he is a descendant of the brothers Grimm, whose dark and sinister fairy tale characters weren’t just figments of the imagination, but real-life creatures who have preyed on humanity for centuries. This guy can see through their disguises and must protect the citizens of present day Portland, Oregon from their maniacal plots. Pretty cool concept, though in truth I was drawn to it mainly because it is set in Portland. I enjoyed the first episode very much, and intend to get caught up since the rest of the season is available for viewing On Demand. My tastes in television have definitely evolved over the years; I’ve dropped a lot of reality TV and standard issue procedurals (like C.S.I.) in favor of darker and quirkier programming. Think The Walking Dead and Dexter and Breaking Bad and ABC’s new drama The River. So in that regard, Grimm is right up my alley.

Hey, I could be Random Dead Body #3! (Courtesy of poptower.com).

After finishing the show I got on Facebook and, coincidentally, there was a link from one of the local news stations – a story about how Grimm was putting out a casting call and looking for extras. They’re shooting episodes around Portland from now until April and are looking for a good mix of people to fill a variety of different roles, including stand-in, speaking, and non-speaking extras. The article went on to state that “ALL ages are welcome; ALL body types; ALL experience levels; and ALL roles are paid.” Well hell, I thought. Why not throw my hat in the ring? Might as well take advantage of this still-unemployed situation while I can.

Maybe it’ll lead to bigger and better things. Question: do they hand out Emmy awards for Random Guy Walking Down The Street? What if I’m a really convincing stroller?! I’m willing to practice, you know. I’m a firm believer in “method acting.” I’ll spend all day walking down the street if I have to, just so I can really nail the role. I can mix things up a little, too. Have a newspaper tucked beneath my arm in one scene. Maybe hold a Starbucks cup in another. And I’m willing to improvise. Whip out my phone and hold a fake conversation. Pretend to hail a taxi. Jump away from the curb in order to avoid being splashed by a bicyclist careening through a puddle. I can’t wait ’til they seat me next to Bryan Cranston at the awards ceremonies (I won’t let fame go to my head, I promise, but I’m going to insist on this arrangement; he is so fantastic on Breaking Bad that I’d like to pick his brain on future walking-down-the street ideas, like for instance, could I get away with skipping if the scene was in need of a little levity? What about impromptu hop-scotching?). I’ll do whatever I need to, because we actors take our craft very seriously.

I draw the line at nudity, though.

Unless it’s tastefully done and central to the plot, of course.

So, we’ll see what comes of this! The application process was straightforward and simple. I had to answer a few questions (height, weight, shoe size, make and  model of my car, do I own a dog and would I be willing to bring him on the set (okay, that one was a little odd, but aren’t those Hollywood folk a strange lot to begin with?)) and submit a couple of photos. Done, and done. Now I’ll just wait for the president of NBC to call me personally and tell me I’m hired.

Or, you know. Some assistant of an assistant to an assistant.

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ET Phone Home…and Bet on the Packers in ’67

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I came across a news story the other day that talked about how these 47-year old television signals we had beamed into space are suddenly and mysteriously bouncing back to earth now. A group of astronomers in Puerto Rico made the discovery while searching for signs of intelligent life. Pretty cool, huh?

The whole thing got me to thinking. If there are aliens on some distant planet – let’s call it Vega, which happens to be the fifth-brightest star in the sky and is a mere twenty-five light years from earth – then, think of all the fun shows they’re catching on TV right now! The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Bewitched and The Addams Family are brand new, and they’re showing Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer for the first time (I’m sure it’ll become a holiday classic on Vega, as well). There’s The Andy Griffith Show and Gilligan’s Island and My Three Sons. American Bandstand and Gunsmoke and the last original episodes of The Twilight Zone. Those lucky extraterrestrials are in for a real treat!

Just wait 'til Jerry Springer hits the air. (Courtesy of scifiward.com).

Of course, not everything will be rosy as the years roll by. I feel like we should apologize in advance for The Clapper and Chia pets and Joanie Loves Chachi. On the plus side, they’ll get to see Mean Joe Green and Where’s The Beef? and that really bitchin’ Apple Macintosh commercial from 1984 that only aired once. Sure, they may scoff at the technology (and laugh outright over our cute little moon landing), but they’re sure to admire All In The Family and The Cosby Show and Seinfeld. Someday, there will be a bunch of ETs wandering around debating over Who Shot JR. Plus, all those awesome Super Bowls will be brand new! They have no idea that the Green Bay Packers will come out strong, the Pittsburgh Steelers will dominate for awhile, the 49ers and Cowboys will kick a little ass, and the Buffalo Bills will choke four years in a row. Man, I could make a killing gambling on these games if I could just hitch a ride to Vega.

Come to think of it, Tara did promise me a trip down the Extraterrestrial Highway in January. Hmm. Then again, the guys on their currency might have tentacles and three heads. Might be tough passing off those bills at Target.

On A More Serious But No Less Far-Out Note…

My doctor’s bills have started to roll in.

Keep in mind, I am still unemployed. Which means I’ve got no health insurance. My parents warned me when I lost my job that the one thing I wouldn’t want to do is end up in the hospital. Naturally, being the rebellious sort, I didn’t listen to them.

You know what’s guaranteed to produce a good laugh? Opening up a hospital bill for $47,000. Seriously, I was practically Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off when I tore into that particular envelope.

The good news is, if I pay it before the due date – twelve days away – they’ll knock off five grand!

Actually, the gooder news is, they had me fill out a charity application while there. Given my (lack of) income and the fact that I claim one dependent on my taxes, there’s a fairly good chance most of my medical bills will be paid by the state. I sure hope so. You can’t get blood from a stone, after all. (Maybe on Vega you can. Could be part of their advanced technology. One more reason to visit).

Speaking of blood, I had a doctor’s appointment last week, and the nursing assistant who drew my blood said it was particularly dark. She joked that I must be descended from royalty. I’m not really sure what the one thing has to do with the other, but I told her my ancestors were all pretty much poor peasants. Sheep and goat herders in Communist block countries. I’m pretty sure there are no kings or queens in the family line, though I am dating a Leo so there’s a chance that has rubbed off on me.

I also had a follow-up surgical visit the other day, and the doctor said everything looked great and I am healing well. I actually feel like I’m pretty much back to normal now, and I celebrated that with a long-overdue Bloody Mary a few nights ago. Believe me when I say that was one tasty beverage.

It’s good that I’m feeling normal again, because in just ten more days I’ll be stepping onto an airplane for the first time in more than a decade! My girlfriend and I have to make up for our last visit, which didn’t go quite as we had anticipated.

It’s going to be a blast!

$913.26

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After recently downloading a song on iTunes and seeing the bill pop up in my In Box a few days later – $1.06 – I decided, on a whim, to click on my Purchase History. This took me to a handy little spreadsheet that listed every single song, video, TV episode, podcast, and app I have downloaded since signing up for an iTunes account on April 6, 2005. Busting out the calculator, I quickly added up my total purchases, and was quite astonished to learn that, over the course of a little over six years, I have paid $913.26 to Apple for all my downloads.

Two thoughts:

  1. Holy crap.
  2. You’re welcome, Steve Jobs.

The vast majority of those purchases were for music, and I’ve got quite a library to show for it. There were a bunch of episodes of both Heroes and Lost that I bought while catching up on both series, and never even kept. Regardless, it’s an eye-opening number. That’s a budget of $150 a year, just for music. Hard for this unemployed guy to fathom.

Damn, that's a lot of mu$ic!

Oh, well. I don’t download items with the same frequency as I did early on, at least.

I’m trying out the new “aside” post format. Think of it as a 30-second commercial rather than a 22-minute sitcom. Maybe I’ll post shorter, more frequent entries. Or, you know…maybe not.

I drop the kids off at their mom’s house in a little over an hour, then I’m settling in for the three-hour season finale of Survivor. Even though he’s controlled the game from the start, it’s going to be tough for Boston Rob to go all the way and convince the jury he’s worthy of $1 million. Still, I hope he pulls it off.

This is literally my best blog post ever.

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A friend of mine compared me to Rob Lowe the other day. I was initially thrilled – after all, he’s still considered eye candy by the ladies, right? Only she wasn’t referring to the man himself or his looks but, rather, to his character on Parks And Recreation, Chris Traeger.

First off, I have to say that Parks And Recreation has surpassed the aging-but-still-funny The Office as my favorite sitcom (though on any given day the ever-creative and witty How I Met Your Mother and the likably nutty Modern Family might also be in the running). Parks & Rec, though – week after week, it delivers huge laughs, thanks to its terrific ensemble cast of characters.

Rob Lowe’s Chris Traeger is cheerful, optimistic, and never has a bad thing to say about anybody or anything. Every meal is “literally” the best he’s ever tasted, and he’s so polite and friendly that his girlfriend didn’t even realize he’d broken up with her. Apparently, it is my penchant to wax enthusiastically over everything I try, do or see that has earned me this comparison. As much as I hate to admit it, my friend is right.

Rob Lowe Parks and Recreation

Parks And Recreation is literally the funniest show on television!

Take last week, for instance. I went to the movies to see Source Code. She asked me how it was, and I said, “Great movie! I loved it!”

“You loved Insidious last week,” she pointed out.

“Yes, yes! Another excellent film!”

“And the week before that, you were raving about Limitless.“

“Limitless was awesome!”

“One of these days,” she said, “You’re going to end up seeing a movie you don’t love. I can’t wait until that happens.”

OK, first: whatever! Second – what can I say? I only go see movies that I think I’ll really enjoy in the first place. Then again, I’ve seen a lot of movies this year, thanks to unemployment + $5 Tuesdays at the local cineplex. And pretty much to a T, I’ve raved over every one of them. Except for The Rite, although I did go on and on about Anthony Hopkins’ brilliant performance.

And then, as if to underscore her point, I ordered a new pizza – the Combo Magnifique – from Papa Murphy’s last week, and when she asked how it was, I replied in my usual manner. “Oh my god, delicious! That was literally the best pizza I’ve ever had from Papa Murphy’s. My new favorite.”

Even though we were talking on the phone, she rolled her eyes. I know she did.

“There you go again,” she said. “It’s just like the movies. Every time you tell me about a meal you’ve eaten, you describe it as being ‘delicious’ and tell me how much you loved it. Don’t you ever eat anything you don’t like? Huh, Chris Traeger? Huh??”

The short answer is, of course! I don’t like everything that’s put down in front of me. Try to spoon Brussel’s sprouts onto my plate and you might just lose your hand! And yet, once again, I have to reluctantly agree that my friend is right, for the most part. I do tend to extol the virtues of pretty much every meal I eat, whether it’s homemade, or served to me in a restaurant, food cart, or drive-through window.

This trait does not run in the family. My brother, for instance, tends to be “choosier” (to put it diplomatically, since he’s probably reading). Less inclined to heap praise on an experience. He enjoys writing reviews on Yelp, and was telling me about all the times he has sent meals back in his life. This wasn’t really surprising to me; last year he came up for a visit, and we ordered the seasonal onion rings from Burgerville. They emerged from the kitchen a little blackened, and my brother was immediately up in arms over this. He complained to the staff and sent them back. Me? I ate them anyway, and enjoyed them immensely. They tasted great! The manager explained that late in the season the acid content in the onions changes and they tend to come out of the fryer a little darker than normal, an explanation that worked fine for me. I got to thinking about it, and I have never – not even once – sent back a meal in a restaurant because I didn’t enjoy it. One time I ordered steak and eggs for breakfast and the steak was served really rare. I like it pink inside, but this was red. And yet, I ate it anyway, and in fact marveled over the delicious hash browns that came with the meal. Hello, the name’s Chris Traeger. Nice to meet you.

Even my dad tried to “send back” the tri-tip roast my mom cooked for Easter dinner yesterday because it was slightly overdone. Sheesh. I, of course, praised it. Hey, the flavor was excellent. Turned out to be a really, really good meal.

She did once make an eggplant dish that I wasn’t fond of, though. Proving that even I have my limits. (Sorry, mom).

So, I don’t know if I’m just easy to please or really forgiving. Maybe I set the bar low. My ex would always say the meals she ordered in restaurants couldn’t match her home cooking and weren’t worth the expense, while I would be raving about my Caesar salad and pointing out the delicious, buttery crunch of my sole almondine.

Which was literally the best fish I’d ever had in my life…

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How YOU Doin’, Snow Bunny?

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I learned yesterday that my DVR mysteriously un-programmed all my series recordings. This is not an insignificant number, by the way; I have come to detest watching TV shows “live” and dealing with commercials, so I’ve got everything programmed. Take Thursday night, for example: I love NBC’s comedy lineup, but I won’t start Community until, say, 8:25. That way I can zip through that, plus The Big Bang Theory on CBS, The Office, and Parks & Recreation without being bothered by ads. Ironic, considering I majored in Advertising in college. Do you suppose technology has made us all a little bit ADD these days?

Apparently, this bizarre memory wipe happened sometime last week, but I failed to notice until yesterday afternoon, and only because my dad started talking about an episode of Hawaii Five-O that I had not seen – and I watch that show religiously. Then, a Facebook post mentioned Ricky Gervais‘s guest appearance on The Office. Hmm. I’d checked my DVR’s scheduled recordings at the beginning of the week and saw there was nothing programmed, so I’d assumed all the shows I watch were repeats. Oops. Dismayed by this turn of events, I went in and had to manually reprogram all my series recordings again, while wondering what I may have missed along the way. I did catch that Hawaii Five-O ep my dad mentioned. Thank goodness for On Demand.

I’m left wondering how this could possibly have happened, though. I’ve had a DVR for years now, and it has always worked perfectly fine – as punctual and reliable as an alarm clock. Must be some glitch in the flux capacitor. Oddly enough, strange things have been happening around my house for over a week now.

One night last week, the smoke detectors went off, screaming and wailing at 4:30 AM. There is nothing more frightening than being roused from a deep sleep by the sound of a smoke detector. I leaped out of bed in a wild panic, sure that my townhouse was burning down. Before I could make it to the bedroom door, the alarm quit just as suddenly as it started. Six long, very loud beeps and it was done. Satisfied that it had been a weird malfunction, I pulled the covers up and went back to sleep. Or tried to, anyway – but two minutes later, the same thing happened again. I was more annoyed than scared now, and figured it must have been a dying battery in one of the units – although that’s a hell of a way to let you know it’s time to change it. I resigned myself to having to fetch the ladder from the garage and figure out which smoke detector was acting up while bleary eyed with sleep, but fortunately that was the end of that and the alarm never went off again. Eventually I fell back asleep. The next morning Rusty and Audrey asked, “Did you hear the smoke detectors last night?!” as soon as I came downstairs. Children, folks in Idaho heard those damn things. I suppose if I were a good father I’d have checked on them afterwards – or, you know, at least felt the door to see if it was hot, thereby ensuring the alarms were really false ones –  but my down comforter was calling for me something fierce.

And then, a couple of nights ago, I awoke with a jolt because my bed had been shaking. So hard, I assumed we’d just had an earthquake. I noted the time – 11:53 PM – and nearly got up to check the news online, but I figured it could wait until morning. When I got up the next day, I immediately powered up the laptop and Googled Portland earthquake. There were links to a few past earthquakes, but nothing relating to the previous night’s temblor. How odd, I thought. I went directly to one of the local news station’s websites to find the story – but again, came up blank. Finally I accessed the USGS itself, and was forced to come to the bizarre conclusion that there had not, in fact, been an earthquake the night before. Which I guess means I imagined the whole thing. Well, isn’t that comforting! Or maybe I was having a really bad dream – or a really good one. If that’s the case, it sucks, because I can’t remember a thing about it.

I guess I’ll just file it all away into the Weird Happenings bin and see if anything else unexplainable goes down in the near future.

Oh, something else did happen last week, but it was humorous more than anything else. There’s a 50s-themed burger joint/diner down the street a ways called Boppin’ Bo’s Malt Shop & Grill. I had a coupon for $4 off per burger, which is a pretty good deal, so I decided to splurge and take the kids out to dinner. I figured, unemployed or not, if I can feed the three of us for $15 that’s too good to pass up. Better yet, I became a fan on Facebook right before we left, and they were advertising the following on their page:

Boppin’ Bo’s Malt Shop and Grill Become a Fan of Boppin’ Bo’s on Facebook and receive one free Ice Cream Sundae with your meal (one per tableup to $6.95), just say the key words “Snow Bunny” to your server. Check back monthly for more specails for all of our Facebook friends new and old!!

Joey Tribbiani

I felt like I was channeling my inner Joey Tribbiani. (Courtesy of studentsoftheworld.info).

So we got there and enjoyed our meal, and then I told the kids that I knew “a secret password” to get us a free ice cream sundae. They looked at me skeptically, but I assured them it would work. It had to. Facebook told me it would.

Our waitress arrived with the check and asked if there was anything else we wanted. I looked at her slyly, nodded my head in a fashion befitting Joey Tribbiani from Friends, and said, “I would like something else, snow bunny.“

“Oh, really?” she replied with a nervous little chuckle. “A snow bunny…like a little figurine?”

I assumed she was just yanking my chain for show, trying to make me look bad in front of the kids (who by now were on the verge of all-out laughter).

“I think you know what I mean, snow bunny,” I said again, and this time may even have thrown in a little wink for good measure.

Only she had no idea what I meant and, clearly a little creeped out by my sudden and inexplainable dastardly flirtations, laid the check down and began to excuse herself.

“Wait!” I said, ignoring Rusty and Audrey, who were now flat-out laughing over my seemingly embarrassing miscue. “I’m supposed to say snow bunny to you and get something good!”

Ice cream sundae

Not our actual sundae, but a pretty good replica. Ours had more whipped cream. (Courtesy of memphisflyer.com).

Well, that didn’t help matters and came out sounding all sorts of wrong, so I quickly filled her in on the restaurant’s Facebook page and the free offer it promised. She looked mildly relieved that I hadn’t been trying some lame come-on by calling her by a cute pet name when our relationship had not even progressed beyond server/customer yet, and said she’d go check with the manager. A minute later she returned to say that, yes, the deal was valid, and remarked that it would have been nice to have been informed of the special considering she was an employee and whatnot.

Five minutes later, armed with three spoons, the kids and I devoured the most gigantic and delicious ice cream sundae this side of the Mississippi absolutely free of charge. It was worth a little bit of embarrassment. The truth is, our waitress – my snow bunny – was pretty cute. I don’t mind that I accidentally flirted with her. She can be the Rachel to my Joey any old day.

Still, for my troubles, I made sure to eat the cherry on top before the kids could get to it.

Amazing Race: How Sweet The Sound

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My dad told me yesterday that he had a great idea.

“We should go on The Amazing Race!” he said, his eyes lighting up with excitement.

“Umm, err, ahh,” I replied, not as enthralled with visions of a merry trot around the globe as he was, despite the allure of a million-dollar cash prize. “Why do you say that?”

“Because we’ve got a great angle. A 64-year old father and his unemployed son, racing around the world in an attempt to win money so the kid doesn’t have to worry about finding a job!”

I’ll admit, that got my attention.

But only briefly. As much as I like The Amazing Race - and I do; as far as reality series go, that one is more “cerebral,” for lack of a better word, than most; plus, it’s got exotic locales and some really fun challenges – I would hate to have cameras shoved in my face 24/7. I prefer to be the guy behind the lens, thank you very much.

Then again, the truth may lie closer to Rusty’s assertion. When I shared his grandfather’s idea with him, my son replied, “You’re probably afraid you’ll do something stupid on national television.”

OK. There’s that, too. I’d probably be the guy who turned LEFT and took us on a fifty-mile wrong-way detour down the Autobahn when the sign for Munich clearly read RIGHT. And then for months afterward, anytime I set foot in Target or Jack In The Box or Petsmart, I’d have to deal with some stranger recognizing me. “Hey, aren’t you the idiot who went left when he should have gone right?!” they’d declare, out loud so the entire store could hear. Then they’d probably have the audacity to ask for my autograph. I don’t need that sort of pressure in my life.

“Don’t you want to be famous?” Rusty asked.

First off, there’s a fine line between fame and infamy. One stupid slip-up would put me clearly into the latter camp. Secondly – no. I don’t crave fame. I’ll take fortune, but I have no desire to be recognized every place I go. I guess that’s why being a writer appeals to me…it’s basically an anonymous job. Nobody knows who you are unless you achieve the status of, say, Stephen King.

Gravity and cheese are not on friendly terms. (Image courtesy of serialmente.com).

Let’s face it, some of the elimination challenges on The Amazing Race are pretty difficult. Climbing up a steep and slippery hill in Switzerland and then rolling not one – not two – but four 100-lb. wheels of cheese downhill, for instance – it’s a wonder nobody got killed. The hills were alive with the sound of gouda! Or having to eat your way through two pounds of caviar in St. Petersburg. I tried caviar once in my life, and even though raw fish eggs are considered a delicacy, I found a single spoonful difficult to swallow. It’s no wonder one of the contestants vomited midway through the challenge. Talk about champagne wishes and caviar nightmares, Robin Leach.

As hard as some of the physical tasks are, it’s the mental ones that are even worse. Sifting through more than 100 bales of hay to find a single clue not much bigger than a needle would drive me to the brink of insanity. As would bungee jumping off of anything (damn this fear of heights), or learning how to play a song on an accordion or dance some local foxtrot-from-hell, or running through the streets of Siberia in my underwear.

But if I could get past my fear of looking like a fool in front of an audience of millions, then yeah, The Amazing Race is the reality show I’d most like to compete on. You get to see some great places around the world, stopping in countries you’d probably never imagine visiting otherwise. Interact with the locals. Learn their customs, sample their cuisine. All that racing toward finish lines to avoid coming in last place is good exercise. Detours, road blocks, u-turns? They’re all a great workout for your brain, too – strategizing is like solving a puzzle. And unlike Survivor, at the end of every day you end up in a warm bed in some hotel, with a hot shower at your disposal, and – I’m sure in some cases, at least – a mint on your pillow. Sure beats freezing your butt off in a leaky palm frond-covered shelter surrounded by backstabbing, conniving contestants who haven’t bathed in weeks while looking forward to a breakfast of rice, and maybe a raw clam if you’re lucky. Forget the tribe, Jeff; I have spoken, and I’m saying, not my cup of tea.

"I'm sorry to tell you I pronounce 'been' like 'bean.'" (Image courtesy of buddytv.com)

Suddenly, The Amazing Race is sounding sweeter and sweeter. I mean, even if we didn’t end up winning the whole thing, look at the frequent flyer miles we’d rack up. Plus, we’d get to hear Phil Keoghan say, “You have bean eliminated” in person. Love the accent, fella.

Hmm…

Time to get a passport, I’m thinking!

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Late To The Party

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Last night’s season premiere of Lost was typically mind-blowing. For weeks – actually, months (come to think of it, pretty much since the closing credits of the Season 5 finale last May were scrolling across the screen) – I have been eagerly awaiting the return of John, Jack and company. There has never been a show like Lost before – it is wildly inventive, original, creative, and completely unpredictable. How JJ Abrams ever pitched the idea to ABC, and sold them on it, is beyond me.

My excitement over the drama is sort of funny in a way, though. Because as much as I love it now and consider it the quintessential definition of Must-See TV, I can’t claim to have been a fan from the start. As a matter of fact, I didn’t catch my first episode until Season 3 was winding down. Positive word-of-mouth and a burning curiosity (not to mention a Netflix subscription) drove me to seek out what I’d missed during the summer doldrums of 2007, and by the time I’d gotten all caught up, I considered myself a hardcore fan.

I should have been into Lost from the start. I’m a sci-fi junkie with an interest in concepts like time travel, ghosts, alternate realities, and life after death. It’s almost like the show was written just for me. In my defense, I didn’t know it would contain all those plot elements when it first came out. Plane crashes on an island, there are survivors. Interesting, but hardly original. And where was Wilson, the volleyball? I’d already watched Tom Hanks lose a ton of weight and grow a long, scraggly beard. Wasn’t sure I wanted to watch a whole season’s worth of that (or many seasons, as it turned out). So sue me, I was wrong.

It’s not the first time I’ve become a huge fan of a show after it’s already achieved mainstream popularity, or at the least, a dedicated cult following. Take Dexter, for instance. I love it, and think it’s one of the best shows on TV, hands down. I subscribe to Showtime every year for three months just to catch it, and then promptly cancel my subscription after. I’ve even taken to dressing like Dexter at work, appropriating his casual attire and making it my “look.” Obsess much, Mark? It’s right up my alley – the concept of a sympathetic serial killer only offing the bad guys, and how human (or inhuman) he appears in his interactions with others. Love it to death (ha). The show is killer (okay, stretching for the laugh now). And yet, I didn’t discover it until the second season.

And then there’s my favorite sitcom, The Office. This one I did watch right from the start! But…only the first two episodes. And then I gave up on it (I’ve been asking myself why ever since), until the following season, when a coworker waxed enthusiastically over it every Friday. I picked it up again, and nowadays, would be lost without my weekly Michael Scott fix.

True Blood is my most recent example of showing up late to the party. The hype over season one intrigued me enough to catch up on Netflix. At least this time I was only twelve episodes behind. There are other shows, like Mad Men and 30 Rock, that I feel I should be watching, but honestly, I can’t afford another emotional television investment these days – my dance card is full enough already.

To be fair, once or twice I have actually been ahead of the game. I eagerly queued up for a brand new sitcom in the late 80s, a little show about nothing called Seinfeld, because I was a fan of Jerry-the-comedian and the premise looked intriguing. I am proud to say I walked around that entire first season, extolling its virtues to everybody within earshot, while the show languished and ratings were in the toilet. Eventually, of course, it caught on and became a pop-culture phenomenon. And I could proudly say that I was there right from the start.

That hasn’t happened since, and it may never occur again. But that’s neither here nor there.

It’s hard to predict what’s going to be big and what isn’t. I was on board with a drama called Journeyman right from the start. Loved it…but America didn’t. Cue the cancellation music. Same with Swingtown. And Pushing Daisies wasn’t initially on my radar, but there was lots of hype so I jumped on board that bandwagon a week after the premiere…only to see the show pushing up its own daisies soon after. Oh, well. I tried.

I think the real takeaway from all of this is…I watch too damn much television!