Ah yes, Fall TV season is upon us once again. This fall TV season is different than any other TV season I've ever seen. And not because of the slate of enticing new shows, or the anticipation of returning favorites, or the demise of sadly-missed shows ... But because now I have a kid and TV watching just ain't the same as it used to be. Darnit. We prepped for this, tho - we knew things would change. In September 2005, we purchased the DVR (or rented, whatev) service from Brighthouse. We tinkered around with it, messed with settings, just played around. Little did I know it would become a Godsend for an entertainment junkie such as myself.
We started out DVRing an episode of something here and there. Maybe a Law and Order Criminal Intent that was re-running on A&E and we didn't have time to watch the whole thing. Maybe one of Alton Brown's Good Eats so we could catch the tail end of Wheel of Fortune (where I would summarily whip the contestants bums in the final round). Maybe the VH1 top 20 video countdown so we could see what was cool and "in" and pretend that we were still hip and relevant.
Then it got a little more serious. We set the DVR to tape our regularly watched shows on a schedule. Even if we had the time to watch a show, we'd wait til the DVR finished, so we could watch the show sans commercials. It felt like we were very efficient TV junkies when we were able to fast forward thru the commercials. Hey, we were saving 8 minutes per 30 minutes of TV programming. We felt so smart, so accomplished, so ahead of the curve.
Even tho Owen was born last year during the regular TV season, we managed to watch all our shows we had DVRd in a timely fashion. We'd get home from work, play with him, feed him a bottle, get our dinner ready, put him in his entertainer (when he was old enough) and watch our shows from the previous night while eating dinner. Then when we were done 22 or 44 minutes later, we'd hang out with him and play and do all that stuff. Not to mention (but I will anyway), when I was on maternity leave, I'd just watch my shows during his marathon feeding sessions. It was a great schedule.
Then the summer re-run season occured. Over the summer, Owen started eated solids and quickly moved to real people food. He started eating in a high chair. He started scooching. He started crying if we held him too long, since he wanted to be out and about. He really started to want to "walk" everywhere. He started crawling. So gone were the days of playful moments in his exersaucer. And it was OK by us. We were moving around, staying active, rolling on the floor, playing. And the TV stayed off. We did start watching Psych over the summer, but that was at ten p.m., so we'd watch it (on DVR, of course) after Owen went to sleep. And of course, we watched Project Runway, but that was also a ten o'clock show. I DVR'd It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Hex to watch later... but of course, that's still sitting in my DVR player, unwatched.
And so now the fall TV season is upon us once again. Along with the above mentioned shows, Studio 60 is sitting in my DVR. As is Law and Order (all three of them) and Dead Like Me (Sci Fi started showing it). And tonight is My Name Is Earl and The Office are on. And I kinda wanna see Ugly Betty. What am I going to do next month when Lost comes back? And Veronica Mars? And when 30 Rock debuts? I need a bigger damn hard drive - or at least another 3 hours in the day.
Stupid DVR is all I have to say about mine. We DVRed Supernatural since we watched Smallville that was recorded and then watched our recorded Grey's Anatomy. Well on Supernatural the darn thing messed up and it was all choppy and words chopped in and out. Grrr. We got the main point but it would have been nice to hear the whole darn thing. Glad I don't have a ton of shows. Do you know this is our 6th DVR box? Stupid DVRs...now I have to get another one I guess. Maybe this one will last....haha