Hate the Box, Love the Content

Ah, television. The big black box and I have long had a strange relationship. As a wee lad, aka pre-fourth grade, we had cable at my house. I grew up on Nickelodeon, Snick, the pre-ABC Family Channel and the actual-ABC TGIF. But toward the end of third grade, my family moved into a new house a little more outside of town, an abyss where cable wasn't installed and DirectTV, in its infancy, couldn't reach us because our "trees were too tall." (I never understood that.) As such, I didn't have cable again until I was in college. I didn't spend my adolescent years in front of the MTV box, I never watched an episode of TRL, and my family and I gathered around nightly to watch network TV that we could pick up with a giant antenna in our attic.

A little collage of some of my favorite TV, past and present.

In college, I had cable all four years, and though roommates and I watched it (Project Runway, Top Model marathons, etc.), I mostly paid for it because it came with the Internet. I've never been a channel flipper (we only had five channels, so one go-around was good enough and there was always a single obvious choice) and sitting in front of the box surfing for any mindless old thing never appealed to me. It still doesn't. In college, I taped shows I was interested in (cough Star Trek Voyager every weekday on Spike from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. except on Friday when it was only on from 3 to 4 cough) and watched those, then watched TV when specific shows came on. And then came full episodes ABC.com. Hello, lovelies.

Because the things about TV and me is that I love television programming, but I hate television itself. The writing on TV is like nothing else, and I'd almost always rather watch a few episodes on DVD (another TV godsend) than a movie. My attention span is short, so episodes are good for me, but I'm also a freak for completing a project in order, encouraging me to watch seasons as wholes. I am basically made for TV programming as a stand-alone option.

Right now on Hulu, I'm subscribed to 14 shows: 30 Rock, Brothers and Sisters, Modern Family, Family Guy, The Cleavland Show, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Cougar Town, Dollhouse, Flash Forward, Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, V, and SNL. Add in Mad Men and I actually follow every episode of 15 current shows. And that doesn't include off-season shows like Weeds, United States of Tara, Nurse Jackie and so on. I own the entire series of Alias, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Will & Grace, then assorted other seasons of other shows.

The point of this post is a realization that I've come to today: I. Love. Television. (Programming.) I've always known, and I'm sure friends will give me a "duh" face, but I've never realized that I was such a TV person. Or that I loved TV writing so much. (Something you might notice is missing: reality TV/game shows. I like my shit written.)

So I'm going to do what any ambitious young person does and try to write some. I'm in a big creation phase right now and I keep making work for myself, but I'm trying to see what flows. And right now, this feels like it flows more than anything I've written, ever. I'm not quite sure what to think about it.

It was actually a feature in this week's New York magazine, Will Somebody Please Save NBC?, that inspired me. (Shocking that I'm inspired by New York mag, I know.) I saw it when I flipped through the issue on the train this afternoon and then read the entire story online, which I never do. Check it out. Or watch some TV. Programming! Not the box.