As the song goes, I'm blue da-ba-dee-da-ba-die. The May Sweep is pretty much over and done with, the traditional television season has come to an end, and outside of Lost, which ends next week, tonight marks the last night of traditional scripted programming for me for quite a while. It's all very distressing. Oh sure, I have tons of DVDs I can watch, and the shows I only watch when the full season is available on DVD will be available soon, but it's just not the same.
I have here, sitting on my desk, a screener of the Inspector Lewis series from Masterpiece Mystery! And I'm told that series five of Foyle's War is going to air this summer. This is what it's come to — Mystery! on PBS and, eventually, some cable scripted fare. Now, I know that I love the cable scripted fare, and I know that Mystery! is pretty swell usually, but it's not quite normal television viewing and it distresses me.
Oh, there are good reasons for the end of scripted programming over the summer, mainly the lower HUT (houses using televisions) levels and the higher cost of scripted versus non-scripted programming, but that doesn't satiate my desire to watch television.
And, do you want to know what's worse than all of the above? I just ran out of old episodes of Top Gear. I've been TiVo-ing older episodes, letting them stack up, and last night I watched the last one that was sitting there waiting for me. Now I have to wait for next week for another dose of my favorite show.
Are you sick of hearing about Top Gear? If the answer is "yes," that's only because you haven't actually bothered to watch an episode of it.
Article comments
1 - sean paul mahoney
I gotta disagree a little bit. I'm excited for summer television for one big reason- AMC's Mad Men! The smartest show on television is coming back and I can't wait.
2 - Brent
I for one wouldn't want an NBC version of "Top Gear" - inevitably they'd screw it up. What is the show without Clarkson and "THe Stig" anyway, which is exactly what an NBC version would have delivered.