Bube Tube

Those of you who know me or who’ve read this blog with some regularity should be aware of the derision I hurl the way of television. I think it’s universally agreed that the majority of teevee programming is, well, to be kind, non-beneficial. At the very best most of it’s wasteful; at the very worst, it’s downright harmful morally, psychologically, and spiritually.

That being said, the amount of time I spend in front of the tube, recently calculated, is disturbing.

There are a handful of must-see teevee shows I watch, usually recorded on the DVR, throughout the week. Those and two guilty pleasures tally to six hours a week. Add to that two, maybe three football games, and I’m up to about fourteen hours. Toss in two movies a week and the total rises to seventeen hours. I watch about an hour (conservatively) of teevee news a day, and I DVR maybe one or two History’s Mysteries or Sciency-type stuff. Now I’m approaching the 25-hour per week mark.

As you can see, it all adds up. I encourage you to take a moment and consider your own viewing habits.

If we assume I average just under 7 hours of sleep a night, I have 120 hours a week to consciously live, to get everything done I want to do and have to do, to experience life. Teevee watching, that primarily passive zombie-like trance that’s so addictive, accounts for 21 percent of my waking life. If I can expect to live to, oh, let’s say 84 years of age, I will have spent 12 and a third straight, solid years in front of the tube. That’s something like 109,200 hours, depending on what you do with decimals in your calculation.

Normally it takes me about four hours to get through an SF paperback. Triple or quadruple that for a good, classic novel like Seven Pillars or Silence or Kim. But let’s say it takes me 40 hours to get through a book. No, make it 80. That figure of 109,200 hours of lifetime teevee watching thus translates into 1,365 books that could have been read instead.

Good Lord! And I don’t consider myself a heavy teevee watcher – at least until now.

But not all my viewing is bad. I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna watch 109,200 hours of Jersey Shore or Jackass. I try to watch things that are either entertaining or informative. But doesn’t everybody say that, when asked? What’s the cost / benefit analysis of watching UFO Hunters? MonsterQuest? Fox News? The New York Giants and Jets?

Perhaps I’m being too hard on myself.

Perhaps not.

Anyway, the original intent behind this post was to suggest …


The best-written show on teevee today –

Community.

The funniest show on teevee today –

The Big Bang Theory.

Most fascinating character on a teevee show –

Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory.

My two guilty pleasures –

Hell’s Kitchen and The Apprentice.

Best random roll of the dice –

Saturday Night Live or History’s Mysteries (tie).

Most show deserving to come back from hiatus –

Parks and Recreation.

Most consistently funny show of the decade –

The Office.

Best police procedural –

The Mentalist.

Worst trend in teevee production today –

ADD editing. Renders shows like UFO Hunters unwatchable.

Best technological innovation I use –

DVR. Fast-forward past the commercials and watch an hour show in 44 minutes.


Hey, if I just watched the bube tube from the DVR alone, that’d save me 3.29 years over the course of my life! (That’s a lot of commercial watching …)