Television is one of the most uneven of the media. Programming between 7am and 6pm is just plain worthless mind candy. News is a favorite however I only like the general news of the day broadcasts. I don't watch the Sunday political shows or stories that are plain fluff or religious in nature.
I still watch too much television I am sorry to say.
There are quite a few shows I like to watch this season. I don't have cable (gasp!).
Gilmore Girls - I was flipping through the channels one day when I came across Gilmore Girls. I wasn't thrilled at first because I don't care for "chick" shows. This is so not a chick show. The stories are thick, the characters are 3-D, and the relationships of the various characters are real and vivid. The writing is smart and funny but it can also be heavy and serious. My favorite supporting character is Kirk Gleason, the jack-of-all-trades who doesn't really do nay of them well.
The West Wing - I like this look at the back stage of the most powerful office in the world. This season, the show has had less quirkiness since the departure of creator and head writer Aaron Sorkin. It still does a good job of highlighting the political issues of the day inside their fictional world.
C.S.I - What makes this show great is the interesting mysteries in each episode and the rich shades to the individual characters. There is the boss, Gil Grissom, who loves bugs and who has a genetic hearing disorder. Catherine, the former show girl, who is as smart as they come. Sara, the lonesome nerd, who pines for Grissom. Warrick, the former gambling addict, who still struggles working around the casinos. Nick, the ambitious investigator, who is still learning his way. Then there is Greg, the flaky lab guy, who pines for Sara.
Law and Order - I've been watching this show since it started in 1990. What makes this a long running show is the fact it gets many scripts from real life headlines. They are able to talk about some recent issue using the frame of the show. Someone complained once that it was too predictable. I don't think it is. Sometimes they end the program before we know what the trial result will be. We can guess but you can't predict it.
Without a Trace - This new show is a good compliment to C.S.I. It deals with the FBI missing persons department in New York City. The agents follow leads and piece together the life of the missing person to try to find them. They are working under pressure since most disappearance turn into deaths after 48 hours.
Mutant X - I have a hankering for syndicated sci-fi shows like Mutant X. These shows offer interesting characters and stories and represent the best of Canadian film work. These shows also offer great eye candy. Mutant X has Vicky Pratt. Lexa Doig and Lisa Ryder can be viewed on the show Andromeda, and Tia Carrere could be found filling up her body suit nicely on the old Relic Hunter.
Reality - Yes I watch some reality TV shows. Some are better than others. I tend to like the ones that are prize oriented and dislike the desperate dating ones. My favorites of the moment is Survivor, Big Brother, Amazing Race, and The Mole. The good and bad about reality shows is they are not scripted. The success of the show depends on how much conflict that can be generated from the different people chosen for the show so they are heavily edited but it is still fun, like watching a train wreck.
Comedy - I do like sitcoms of all kinds but my favorites are the smartly written ones like That 70's Show, According to Jim, and The George Lopez Show. I like shows that don't go just for the bathroom humor but also make you think.
The Simpsons is consistently funny. It also pokes fun at our faults and events in our lives and I personally like the tweaking that religion gets from time to time.
Saturday Night Live has been a staple of mine since 1976. I would stay up and watch it even though I was only 8 years old. In those early days I almost all ways fell asleep by midnight and I'm grateful Comedy Central and NBC rerun the early shows so I can see what I missed. In the 28 years on the air SNL has had some rough spots but it is a good program.
ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings is a can't miss for me. I find it ironic that the best news reader is from Canada but he does a good job of presenting the news in a factual manner. It also helps that he is the managing editor and focuses on world issues as well as national issues. We must be kept aware of world events as our economy becomes more global.
CNN is THE place to get up to the minute information on breaking stories. It is hard to watch at other times but for spot news nobody beats it.
BBC News allows you to get a non-biased foreign view of world news. On their site you can listen to the BBC World Service radio broadcasts, watch the previous nights news program, and listen to the 6 other BBC radio channels via the Internet.
The Daily Show - Well this isn't really a news program. It is a comedy show about the news but host John Stewart and the other cast members are great at satirizing the news and news makers. I have actually given up watching the 11 PM edition of my local news in order to catch this show.
60 Minutes is hands down the best. They cram so much info into the 15 minutes per story they have to give. If you don't learn something new about an issue in those 15 minutes you haven't been watching close enough.
Dateline is ok depending on what stories they do. They tend to take a tabloid approach on some issues but I do like the programs devoted to a legal case, where you watch from the incident, through the trial, to the aftermath.
Friends, M*A*S*H, Cheers, Frasier, and the Drew Carey Show are shows I find funny no matter how often they are rerun. That to me is the mark of a classic.
PBS is one of my TV staples. With shows like NOVA, This Old House, documentaries, and arts programing, a viewer can find just about anything that interests them.
Square Pegs, Hot Hero Sandwich, The Land of the Lost and School House Rock are shows that ended long ago that I would drop everything to watch again should they be rebroadcast or issued on DVD.
I have contributed reviews and comments to the Internet Movie Database which includes TV shows as well as the all TV site TVtome.com