Nothing On TV

Most days I find I need some kind of background noise as I type away in solitude. If I'm really into what I am writing I can work in silence, but the majority of the time I need something to keep my ears and brain perked up. It helps me focus when I have to concentrate on what is in front of me versus the noise behind me. Podcasts are great to fill the silence, but a majority of those are not uploaded until after noon, which means I have time to kill in the morning. Usually I can simply put my iPod on shuffle, but I haven't bought much new music in the past few weeks, so that relationship has gone stale. This leaves me with TV. And while I enjoy shows like SportsCenter, I can only see Pacers/Grizzlies highlights so many times. After that I have to start searching for something else, which is where my problems arises.

Mid-morning television is a wasteland of reruns from various CSIs, Law & Orders and other crime dramas. This wouldn't bother me if I hadn't seen them all three times already. This got me to thinking about shows that I miss watching in reruns. Some of the best shows on TV used to be available on other channels for a while, but then they disappeared without a warning, almost as though they were re-cancelled. I get that you can't air television shows forever, because after a while the dialect becomes dated and the show seems like it aired just after television was invented (Seinfeld appears to be the only exception to this rule). I just feel like some shows are yanked out of syndication before their time is up.

I am always interested to see what shows seem to live on forever in reruns, while others get some play, but then disappear. For example, every day I flip passed old episodes of Just Shoot Me. Now, I don't know anyone who watched this show when it was airing on its original run and yet, nearly a decade after being cancelled, it is continually on my television guide. Meanwhile, superior (at least in my opinion) shows might be shown once or twice before they disappear forever. One show that this happened to was News Radio, which makes me sad. I used to love this show. And there used to be a time when you could catch a couple of episodes a day on a random channel, but those days are no more. Instead I have to wade through old episodes of shows like Las Vegas which, trust me, are not aging like a fine wine. I understand that some shows manage to find new audiences once they get to reruns, but if you barely had any viewers the first time around, I need you to accept reality and get off my TV. There has got to be something better for me to half-watch instead.