I know the names of some current programs, and I might be able to tell you which are comedies, but based on what I’ve seen on the teasers, there aren’t any that I make any effort to watch, and most I don’t bother with at all. As my husband clicks thru channels, I see bits and pieces of different shows, and I haven’t yet said “Stop, I want to watch that one!” I’ve tried watching a few based on things I’ve read, but nothing has captured me, and most of it strikes me as trite, badly-written and over-broadly acted.
When I have control, I’m more likely to find something on Netflix or On Demand. Lately, it seems more often than not, we watch the shows of days gone by - like Barney Miller. My husband does like a couple of the garage-based “reality” shows, but even those have a sameness to them after a dozen or so episodes. I used to love HGTV porn, but I never watch that channel any more.
So in our household, there’s no such thing as show overload. Heck, we haven’t even started the latest season of House of Cards… quite a change from when we counted the days till the next release.
I’m with GuanoLad. I watch a shitton of TV, including multiple-times-per-week shows like The Daily Show and The Late Show. I watch some Netflix and Amazon shows. I watch British, Australian and Canadian shows. I watch some Cartoon Network shows. I watch some bad shows (Dr. Ken, Superstore), but mostly the shows I watch are super good and not to be missed.
My hobby, basically, is television.
I collect all the shows during the week. Monday through Thursday I watch The Daily Show, The Nightly Show and The Late Show from the night before. From Friday to Sunday I watch all of the other shows I collected from the week. Not gonna lie - that’s about 20 hours worth of TV to slog through. Eep!
Sometimes there will be slow broadcast weeks like the week of Christmas and the week of the Superbowl. That’s when I catch up on Netflix and Amazon shows.
I have finally quit making myself finish shows I don’t like. I just deleted *Rosewood *from my queue…but added The Real O’Neals.
Over the summer, I am 100% baseball (except for my daily shows). If there’s no baseball maybe a movie or two. Thank god, tho, there’s no new TV in the summer anyway.
I am extremely picky about what I watch, and will not hesitate to drop a show in an instant. You say it won’t get good until second or third season? I probably won’t stick around that long. If it:
has nothing but American characters, it’s boring
has nothing but white people in it, it’s hella boring
has no sci-fi or fantasy elements in it, it’s boring
has no women in any kind of main role, it’s kind of boring, although I’ll still give it a chance, unless the women are actively just decoration
has no cute guys, switch to a new show
has no continuity, it’s annoying
too dark or full of evil people doing evil things, it’s bad
full of too much sex, especially at the detriment of the plot, it’s freakin annoying
goes on and on and on forever, it’s annoying, though I will make an exception for shows I really like (which is basically X-Files and Supernatural and that’s about it)
So I end up not really watching a lot of shows. BUT the ones I watch, are really good.
I will never, ever ever go back to the days of appointment TV. Basically if it’s not on Netflix, or I don’t own it, I ain’t watching it. I don’t have cable (choose not to pay for it) and I don’t even watch local TV, and I never watch the news (get my news off the Internet like normal people! :))
Oh, and like Really Not All That Bright, I only watch about an hour of TV a night. The rest of the time is engaged in other hobbies. That is not to sound sanctimonious but just that there’s so much! I want to do! And so little time to do it in.
I originally thought the OP’s question was “TV Reviewers: How do you handle show overload?” I immediately thought of Matt Roush from TV Guide who has a weekly radio program on the local AM (!) station. He must get bombarded with everything, although he admits he gets preview channels and DVDs so he can watch the first three or six episodes before he does his review. Still, it must be a difficult job. I want it!
Frankly, he’s been a good source of how to handle show overload. If he pans a show, I probably wouldn’t like it either. If he praises a show, I’ll give it a try, at least for a few episodes. He’s my Roger Ebert for movie reviews from back in the day.
DVR is my primary means to keep up: Last Man on Earth, Better Call Saul, Bates Motel (it’s so cheesy!), The Americans, Law & Order SVU, The Middle, Modern Family, and Big Bang Theory. (I’m sure I’m missing something here.) If I’m traveling my wife always complains that what she is watching gets cut off by the DVR switching to record one of my shows.
If I miss something on the DVR, we use cable on demand. No Netflix or Amazon Prime - to me that would certainly be overload.
Everything I like is stuffed into Sunday evening. I watch Once Upon A Time, The Walking Dead and Talking Dead. Finished up with Downton Abbey, am waiting for Poldark to come back some day. (Mad Men used to be on Sunday nights, too.) I never got into Game of Thrones, I found it too gruesome even though it would seem on paper right up my alley, but again - Sunday nights.
Monday: Antiques Roadshow on PBS. Wednesday: American Horror Story (if it’s on) and currently Baskets. Thursday: Grey’s Anatomy Saturday: Star Trek TOS on cable, followed by Svengoolie Creature Feature and Lost in Space after that. Filled in with TCM every day. So I guess I do seem to watch more tv than I thought, but Sunday nights, the most.
The question is clearly addressed to TV Viewers in the title, so I don’t understand why you’d respond.
Anyway, I wouldn’t say I quite shut down, but there’s very very few show I follow. Right now, it’s just Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, and It’s Always Sunny, (oh, Archer, too) though I will often let episodes accumulate before watching them. It’s not like my old viewing habits when I used to watch and eagerly anticipate episode week to week. Part of it is just the overwhelming among of choices, and part of it is TV doesn’t entertain me as much as it used to. The Internet and particularly YouTube kind of fill that want now.
I record everything that has commercials and watch most everything else on-demand or on a streaming service like Netflix or Amazon. Also, I try to keep the quality in the upper tier, which means zero network comedies and nearly zero network anything else. Also, I loathe reality shows.
But seriously, I do get that overload sometimes. For me, stuff just falls off the bottom if it doesn’t grab me enough. That’s what happened to Vinyl. It looked really good, and I wanted to watch it, but I just never got to it.
I technically follow about 15-20 shows, but that doesn’t translate into 15-20 hours of TV a week. There’s no longer a sense of urgency to keep up with TV anymore, or to get in on the ground floor at the first episode. I enjoyed Better Call Saul, and even though I lost track of it about midway through the first season I still consider it a show that I watch. The episodes will definitely be widely and cheaply available when I decide to pick it up again, even if that’s years from now. That wasn’t the case 15 years ago, where you’d have to watch the summer reruns or buy the DVDs to catch up on a show you’d lost track of.
I watch television at the semi-pro level. If I’m in my house, I’m probably watching TV.
When I hear about a new show that sounds interesting, I make a note of the premiere date and create a TiVo season pass (now called OnePass) 1-2 weeks before it starts. It joins all of the other shows I record, which I watch whenever I get around to it. My TiVo can record up to four shows at once, so I have passes for pretty much everything I want. When I’m ready to watch TV each night, I look at my “to view” list and pick whatever interests me the most. When I stop caring about a show, I cancel the pass; sometimes after I notice that I’ve let several episodes pile up. There are also a few shows that I have Apple TV subscriptions to, mostly because they’re on Sunday nights (or used to be on Sunday nights) and would often get delayed due to sports events.
Shows I watch include:[ul][li]American Idol[/li][li]The Big Bang Theory[/li][li]Mom[/li][li]Elementary[/li][li]Galavant[/li][li]Masterpiece Mystery (Sherlock)[/li][li]Superstore[/li][li]Telenovela[/li][li]NCIS[/li][li]Modern Family[/li][li]Marvel’s Agent Carter[/li][li]Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.[/li][li]blackish[/li][li]The Grinder[/li][li]The Muppets[/li][li]Chicago Fire[/li][li]Supernatural[/li][li]The Magicians[/li][li]Suits[/li][li]Lip Sync Battle (I only watch this when I know/give a crap about the guest stars; so, rarely)[/li][li]Scandal[/li][li]Full Frontal With Samantha Bee[/li][li]Archer[/li][li]Rosewood[/li][li]Madam Secretary[/li][li]The Good Wife[/li][li]How to Get Away With Murder[/li][li]Royal Pains[/li][li]Ballers[/li][li]House of Lies[/li][li]Looking[/li][li]Silicon Valley[/li][li]Episodes[/li][/ul]
Because I spend nearly every evening drawing comics at the drawing board, I use Television mostly as a background noise. I’ll choose dramas with heavy dialogue, or comedies and drams I’ve seen before so I don’t catch myself looking up at the screen too often.
When I do actually sit down and watch TV, I pick and choose. Fortunately the dramas I enjoy haven’t competed against each other. My Monday viewing, for example, "Fargo" ran on Monday’s and when it ended, "Better Call Saul" started and when it ends, "Turn: Washington Spies" will start. No overlap.
The shows I watch on HBO ("Vinyl", “Veep”, etc… rerun so often, I can catch it any day I want.
I don’t enjoy ‘regular’ network shows (ABC, CBS etc)
I cut the cord, so if it’s not streaming, I don’t watch it.
The only thing I watch live these days is Game of Thrones (I pay for HBO Now). Other than that, appointment tv is a thing of the past, for the reasons others have already stated. I end up watching two or three shows a week, and anywhere from two to a full-out binge on the weekends, depending on what’s going on.
I grow my own TVs at home. They taste better than anything you can get at Best Buy.
I find one one hour long show to watch each night, Wednesday is Supernatural etc., and then I watch sitcoms or stuff off the DVR until that show comes on.
Not only am I a TV junkie, I am also, first and foremost, a basketball junkie. I watch between 4-6 hours of basketball every night (depending on whether it’s NBA or WNBA season), and then I watch 3-4 hours of television before I go to bed. Fortunately, I don’t have to be at my job until 10, but I still sleep less than five hours a night, on average.
