The Shows We (Don't) Watch

My wife and I are pretty picky when it comes to watching television. Every year, we feel relieved when the TV season ends so that we can have our evenings fully free. To that end, we also are somewhat leery about the start of each new season. Generally speaking, my wife is content to not commit to any new show that hasn't been "grandfathered" in from the previous season. Therefore, she sometimes gets annoyed with me when I want to "try" new shows to see if it's worth committing to.

Those shows that have been "grandfathered" in include:
-- Lost (January's way too far away ...)
-- Jericho (We're very glad it got renewed, even if it doesn't survive much longer.)
-- Survivor (We're devoted fans, through thick and thin.)
-- Amazing Race (We love this show, but sometimes it rubs us the wrong way.)

Um ... that's about it. Last year we gave up on Smallville as too time-consuming, and we missed all the episodes for The 4400 (which I've downloaded, so we can watch them ... eventually). It is a very rare event for us to give up on a show because we tend to be disturbing devoted to it -- we always want to know what happens next! Because of this, we're often surprisingly pleased when a series runs its course to conclusion.

So this new season I figured we should try a few new shows that looked interesting. We watched the first episode of "Back to You" and were sorely disappointed as it is sex-obsessed; we'll be skipping that one. We also recorded Kid Nation, but didn't watch it as we decided not to commit to a new reality series, even if it does look interesting. There's a few others that might be of interest to us, like Journeyman and The Bionic Woman, but we have decided to steer clear of those, too. If you haven't already noticed, we lean towards science fiction as the main genre of television we watch.

Which brings me to The Big Bang Theory. The very title is a double entendre, as the show is about two uber-nerds (who are roommates) who have a new, attractive female neighbor. While the two guys are regularly talking about the desire to have sex, it's in such an intellectual way that it generally is inoffensive, if you understand it at all. The dialog is quick and witty, something that reminds me of why we enjoyed Frasier so much when that was on (how I miss it!). The circumstances also make me laugh, and it is not inconceivable that had my wife not come along and saved me, my best friend from college and I might have ended up as role-models for the two uber-nerds. As a fairly nerdy guy, I understood all the jokes in the show, and as a somewhat socially awkward guy, I felt empathy for their plight.

In any case, we're not fully committed, yet. The first episode was a hoot that had my wife hiding behind a pillow in embarrassment (despite what it sounds like, it's a good thing), and had me snickering every few seconds. We'll definitely try it again, but we still have to see if it's worth fully committing to.