The Advantage of Watching Mass Quantities of Television

I have often told you that I love television. It's a fact. I do. And I love you, my dear readers.

So, as you may know, last week I was away, I was out of town, I was … without television. Yes, sad, but true nonetheless.

Now, despite the fact that for various and sundry reasons the amount of television I watch has been cut, I was way, way behind when I returned from my trip. Well, yesterday I made up for it. In an effort to be up to date, in an effort to be more informed, in an effort to be better able to address you, the reader, I watched a ton of television yesterday, and I don't use that term lightly.

What, you so eloquently ask, did I watch? Well, I'll tell you. I watched: Boston Legal, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, The Simpsons, My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, The Office, and two episodes each of: The Sarah Jane Adventures, Law & Order, and Last Restaurant Standing. It was a solid afternoon (and some of the evening) of television viewing. Frankly, it was practically an ideal day.

Okay, I can admit that The Sarah Jane Adventures isn't quite as much fun as I'd like, that Last Restaurant Standing ventured a little into Kitchen Nightmares territory this week, and that I think Doctor Who is a tad too jokey this season, but it was still a good day.

The preceding observations are the exact sort of things I complain about if I watch just a little television over the course of a day. But, when I watch more than "just a little" TV, like I did yesterday, something grander appears. When I sit down and watch a good 10 or 11 hours of television over the course of a day (before you take out time for commercials), I see things in a whole new light.

When I watch that much television in the course of a day, the little quibbles become insignificant, I have the knowledge that there's always a next show, that there's always a little bit more out there to be watched, that if one episode of Law & Order didn't quite have the twist I wanted, the next one might. It's easier to forgive bad episodes of a show when you know that there's another new episode right behind the one you're watching.

I guess what I'm saying is that when I watch as much television as I did yesterday, I take solace in the fact that there are always more stories out there to be told.

For all the complaining I do about TV on a regular basis, there is something wonderful to the medium. Its ability to send us into a multitude of worlds with the push of a button, and to do so one right after the other, is something no other medium can match with the same rapidity of television. It is too bad if some of the worlds we visit are only half as well thought ought as we'd like them to be, but, when I watch enough TV I see the world that is half thought out instead of the half that's missing.

If only I could suck down that much TV on a daily basis.