Viewing Habits

What's your favorite currently-airing TV show? Please don't say CSI: Hamster Wheel or Dancing With My Parents or anything that comes on USA. I mean, there are a number of acceptable answers to this question. I'm guessing yours is probably okay. But for the most part, America? You're doing it wrong.

TV SHOWS YOU* AREN’T WATCHING BUT SHOULD BE

Parks and Recreation
(Season 3 premieres tonight on NBC at 9:30 p.m.)

Like most low-rated shows that turn out to be fantastic, this one had a slow start. I caught up on Netflix a month or two ago, and initially only kept watching because I knew it was supposed to eventually be good. Turns out, it was.

Amy Poehler plays Leslie Knope with a very Michael Scott-esque exuberance, and while that was initially a frequent criticism of the show, I think her character has developed and diverged enough to where she’s not an imitation. But really, it’s the secondary characters that make this show for me. You can’t go wrong with Chris Pratt, who plays wide-eyed lovable idiot Andy in a way that doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch, like I sometimes feel about Kevin from The Office or Brittany from Glee. They’re too dumb to live, but Andy is just dumb enough.

Admittedly, the addition of my very favorite Party Down refugee, Adam Scott, hurts nothing. (Party Down, of course, being a show that would be on this list if anyone in the entire world actually subscribed to Starz and thus could watch it in a manner that actually contributed to its ratings.)

Listen, I’m not saying just blindly go watch tonight’s episode, because I haven’t seen it and it might suck. Believe it or not, as much as I rant and rave about television, the networks don’t yet see fit to send me screeners. But I think it's worth catching up on.

Cougartown
(Wednesday nights at 9:30 p.m. on ABC)

I’ve written about Cougartown before, as one of my favorite discoveries of 2010. Still true. The fact that there’s so much going against this show—its stupid name; Courteney Cox—and yet it still impressed me says something. It’s by Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, and I’m not sure that recommends it, either, considering Scrubs' determined downhill trajectory in its last few seasons. But it’s another gamble I took and it paid off.

The thing I like best about Cougartown probably says something about me as a person—I like how realistic all the characters are. I say it says something about me, because the reason they’re so realistic is that they’re kind of mean and judgy and drink a lot. But that’s life, at least around these parts. My friends and I don’t hang out in coffee shops or at the local diner. We hang out at the bar and we laugh when one of our number falls off their barstool—we may help our friend up off the dirty floor, but we still laugh. I feel like there’s a vast disconnect between 20-somethings in real life and 20-somethings (or 30-somethings, as with most of the characters of Cougartown) in media, and so when I find characters who actually act like I act, I dig it.

Also, it’s funny. Don't you like funny?

Friday Night Lights
(Wednesday nights at some time on some DirecTV channel you don't get, then later this Spring on NBC)

If you haven’t gotten around to watching Friday Night Lights at this point, you’re probably never going to. When everyone whose opinion matters raves about a show, and you still think to yourself, “Well, I don’t really want to watch a show about high school football,” then obviously you have other priorities and can move along and enjoy your life. But it will be a cursed life. A half-life. I mean, I don’t want to make outrageous claims like “best show ever created” or even “best show currently on TV,” because that’s a tough thing to say when Mad Men is still on the air. But if I were going to make outrageous, hyperbolic statements about any currently-airing TV show, trust me, it would be this one.

I know you aren’t going to change your mind. But if you did—and you won’t—it could be for a number of reasons. The incredible yet unheralded acting by basically everyone involved. The fact that it’s beautifully shot, or the ridiculously perfect music. The writing? Is amazing. And I can’t remember the last time I made it through an episode without a tear or two, which might deter you, but isn’t that the point of storytelling? To move you?

But now I sound like the Hallmark Channel or something. Moved to tears by television. Whatever; it’s really, really good.

TV SHOWS THAT WOULD PROBABLY BE ON THIS LIST HAD I GOTTEN AROUND TO WATCHING THEM YET, THUS MAKING ME OFFICIALLY PART OF THE PROBLEM

Breaking Bad
Eastbound & Down
Children's Hospital
Community

And then there's the other, more sinister side of the coin:


TV SHOWS YOU* ARE WATCHING BUT NEED TO STOP, IMMEDIATELY

Two and a Half Men

Seriously, don’t you know better by now? At least play the drinking game if you’re going to watch it.

Better With You

I wanted to like this. At least, I kind of did—one of my best friends went to elementary school or something with one of the leads, the sort of cute one. That kind of second-degree connection is what used to make me almost consider watching Private Practice just because I went to drama camp with the guy that died on it that used to play Piz on Veronica Mars. But anyway, I wanted to like this show.

It’s not my fault I don’t. It’s just bad. The jokes are obvious, and not in the way where you can guess the punchline but the delivery is so good that it’s still hilarious like on Modern Family. The plotlines are ridiculous, but not in the unpredictable way of the aforementioned Parks and Recreation. The show is just wildly unlikeable. And yet! It was picked up for a second season! Why did you do this to me?

Mike and Molly

I have to admit that I’ve never actually seen this show. The premise kind of makes my eyes roll—like, ooh, fat people in love! Let’s all laugh and laugh because they’re fat! And also in love! I even liked Melissa McCarthy on Gilmore Girls, but it’s not getting me to watch this show. But really, I’m just tired of the promo they play every week before How I Met Your Mother—where he says, “Watch our new show, Mike—” and she says, “And Molly.” It’s annoying and I’d like it to go away. If you stop watching, maybe it will.


*YOU does not necessarily refer to you, the audience of TT.TKO. If you are already watching quality TV, carry on. If you watch crap TV but only for the irony of it and/or whilst playing drinking games, carry on. If you are the kind of person that says things like, “Teevee? What’s that? Oh, that thing we stack all our books on!” then GTFO because no pretentious douches allowed.