Pop Life

the devil wears red

As a kid, I used to be a huge TV junkie. I'd finish all my homework in the afternoon (after watching Robotech that is) and after dinner, from about 8pm until whenever my parents made me go to sleep, I'd be so primetime, my surname might as well have been Nielsen.

A stint in college helped wean me off, mostly because I didn't have a television for most of the early '90s (I credit this with saving me from ever developing an addiction to either Seinfeld or Friends). Since then, my television watch has peaked and waned over the years, largely depending on the show. I was a big fan of Once and Again for the first season. My former girlfriend Cat was big into Buffy and she got me hooked for every season from 3 on. More recently, I've taken to watching Alias and both me and my partner Sharon have gotten hooked on watching reruns of Law and Order on TNT fairly religiously.

But then came Netflix. And with that, it's like I have a dope peddler servicing me through the mail every few days and only charging me $19.95/month for the goods. The upside to TV shows on DVD is that you can catch up with an entire show, one season at a time. The downside is that you rarely end up watching an episode a week, as if it were being broadcast. At home, I find myself watching through whole discs - sometimes two - in single sittings, meaning I'm watching three-four hours straight. It's like watch an all-day TV marathon except that it's not just on Memorial Day but every day.

It started with The Sopranos and Sex and the City. Since then it's become The Shield, Band of Brothers, Six Feet Under, Oz, Law and Order, et. al. I still have South Park and Homicide to get to and god forbid if The Wire comes out soon too. I managed to stay off the tube for over a dozen years and now I'm hooked again - damn.

more addictive than oreos and ice cream