Tuesday, May 12, 2009

My Name is Bob and I have a problem.

I'm scared that my current addiction will catch up with me this summer.

Over the last year I started to watch current television shows. It started with dvd collections of past tv shows. I was safe when I stuck with shows that had ended. I loved it. Serialized shows became a minor addiction to me. During a single week I watched character and story arcs that had taken years in their original run. Movies that only took 90 minutes could no longer satisfy my needs with their puny character development. I was hooked.

Over the course of months, I found myself cruising Amazon for my next hit. I was jonesing bad for a new experience. Amazon taunted me with a sale. The first three seasons of Lost were bundled together. Curiosity and the monkey on my back forced me to click the taunting "Add to Shopping Cart". Amazon Prime rushed me my fix in the next couple of days. That's when I was screwed. I was mainlining a current tv show...and Lost, in my opinion, is one of the greatest. Soon I was buying other current shows like Eureka, Burn Notice, and Heroes. I caught up to shows just before the new episodes started to come out last season. That's when I became a slave to my DVR- and not just to those shows, but to new shows with a tenuous link to shows that I'd enjoyed. I loved Lost, so Fringe was a natural leap. Buffy and Angel were gateway shows to Dollhouse.

This week has brought with it a sick dread. Fringe and Lost are going into hibernation (or is it remission? I don't know the term for when shows go into reruns). Luckily, I easily kicked the Heroes habit quickly, so that is one less problem. But I'm scared. I haven't built up a tolerance to summer reruns that others might, I haven't been much for tv shows since high school. I don't know how I'm going to handle it. I have a feeling that I'll soon be trolling the TV Series aisle of Fry's looking for my next fix or checking Hulu for shows I might have missed. I just hope that I'm not shivering in a dark corner watching old procedurals on USA, waiting for new episodes of the shows that I miss. God help me if I get so bad that I start watching sports.

4 comments:

carole* said...

Don't be silly. There's five episodes of "Perry Mason" every week! You'll be fine.

Andrew Penn Romine said...

You're not alone.

Don't give up. We'll find a cure.

Ryno said...

Dude...
Mad Men on Blu-ray is a must.
If you have a blu-ray player, that is. Season 2 is out in June, but season 1 is out now.
Good luck.

Ixtlilton said...

I love Mad Men- great stuff and yes, I'll be picking up season 2. Thanks