HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I remember how TV used to be. A show was on, say, Ed Sullivan at 8 on Sunday, or LA LAW on--when was it? Whatever. It was on when it was on, and if you missed it, tough.
Then came video tape, and if you could figure out your machine, you could TAPE a show and watch it whenever you liked! It was amazing. When it worked.
Then came On Demand, and Tivo, all brilliant and all fabulous, but it has so changed television so now no one knows when anything is on--and I wonder if that's why TV shows come and go so quickly.
Did you see they just canceled the new Ironsides? I think it was on *once.* Once! I mean--I MIGHT have watched it, if I'd had any idea when it was on, who knows. But, it was on. and then--gone. Because no one watched it--canceled. Blam. Scary. Just--on, then gone.
Used to be , a show was on for a season, and might accumulate buzz and viewers and then managed to succeed. Word of mouth traveled more slowly, I guess, right? And that could save a show. Now word of mouth is instant, and that means a show's survival is on the chopping block the first moment it hits the air. Scary.
Are you watching anything new these days? (Could you BELIEVE what happened on Homeland?) (How great is GAME OF
THRONES?) (And we binge-watched--new word!--HOUSE OF CARDS!) We like Hostages, and um...hmm. I'm not sure there's anything else new on our TV agenda. How about you? And did you get caught in any "on then gones"?
LUCY BURDETTE: I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but once in a while I get hooked. And then I'm DEVASTATED when the show is over. (Funnily enough, series books in publishing are in much the same dilemma, she said sadly.) I adored FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. And now I'm totally gaga over
NASHVILLE. Luckily, we figured out how to use our DVR and so can catch up if we miss something...if we're at home. I have a sister-in-law who loves the show too, but did not realize the season had started. (What? I had it on my calendar all summer!) So now she's missed the first 3 episodes. And they have no DVR and she wouldn't begin to know how to use it...
"You can watch it online, on the network website. But you can't fast forward through the commercials," John tells her.
"Huh?" she says.
Anyway, I'm going to pick up Homeland again and give it another try. The tension just got too much for me and I had to back off.
RHYS BOWEN: I also watch very little TV. I was hooked on Downton Abbey until they started killing off all my favorite characters. Now I'm not sure whether I'll watch next season or not. I am a big PBS fan and annoyed that so many English programs are min-series and don't go on and on. I adored Silk but it was only three episodes. I haven't been hooked on any US drama for a long while. So much negativity and violence. Where are the Waltons when you need them? Only The Amazing Race and Project Runway keep drawing me back.
ROSEMARY HARRIS: I LOVE TV. TV shows are a little like sports teams. They give you something to have in common with people. I just don't love too many shows. Does that make sense?
I know what you're saying about what they used to call time-shifting. There used to be an almost community feel when on Friday morning you'd go into the office and everyone would be talking abut LA Law (or 30Something, Hill Street Blues.) Or Monday mornings after the hot PBS show. I never Tivo'd or taped and I guess that was the beginning of - you're on your own, watch when you want. It must be driving the ratings and advertising people crazy.
I was made for binge-watching. Didn't watch Breaking Bad for 5 years until it was ALL OVER - and then I watched it all in one month. Awesome. I'm already watching Downton Abbey thanks to Tunnelbear and looking forward to House of Cards and Orange. I still want Tony Soprano to be alive and I think Nancy Botwin should go back into the weed business.
HALLIE EPHRON: Yes, shows get killed very fast these days. I think it's something like 6 get shot, and then if it's well received they make more. And if ratings are good enough, they order a second season. Most shows don't even make it out of the starting gate.
I almost never watch a new TV show. I might notice when it goes into reruns if it's been a well received. We have a smart TV critic in the Boston Globe (Matthew Gilbert) and if he really likes something I might give it a try. But that shows you how out of date I am: I read the newspaper.
I do love THE GOOD WIFE - but I watch it on my computer. And lots of stuff on PBS -- Antiques Roadshow, most of the PBS crime
shows (love George Gently and Silk (will there be more?) and the one about the two British police detectives whose names I can never remember. I remember when American PBS tried to make their own mysteries and they were dreadful dreadful dreadful. The BBC really has the knack.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: My husband won't watch anything in real time--he binge-watches when shows become available streaming. He's just caught up on Homeland but I haven't watched it. I do watch some "regular" TV, but I record shows on my DVR and if I watch on the night they air, I usually delay long enough so that I can fast forward through the commercials. But I'm still trying to catch up with shows from LAST season. Sigh. My DVR is 70% full. Then if the satellite box goes dead, you lose it all. That's happened before, and it was almost a relief.
As for new shows this season, I've watched one episode of Marvel's Agents of Shield (a bit silly, but fun) and one of The Blacklist, which I really liked. James Spader is, as always, amazing, the dialogue is good, and best of all, Parminder Nagra has a top role. (Anyone remember Neela Rasgotra from ER?)
Which makes me think... I kind of miss the days when our Sunday nights revolved around The X-Files, and MY Thursday nights around ER...
Best new series from the UK this year (which you can watch streaming from Netflix)? The Fall, starring Gillian Anderson and an Irish actor named Jamie Dornan, who's just been picked to play Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey. (Not that I've read THAT!)
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Debs, you can admit your love for 50 Shades of Grey here. We won't judge.
I'm more like Hallie - I tend to wait until a show's been out for a season or two and then pick it up streaming. Not that I tend to marathon too much - though there was that time two summers ago when the Smithie and I sat down to watch the first WALKING DEAD episode at 9pm and didn't get up until 2am! Half the first season in one night. What I really like is the convenience of watching a show when I want to, especially since it always seems like the one show I'm interested in airs at 10:00pm.
Youngest, Ross and I are watching AGENTS OF SHIELD together and liking it very much. So far, it has a low ratio of dumb to good. I've become incredibly picky about the writing on a show, and if the dialog or plotting isn't up to par, I'll bail, even if the performances are great. One example: FALLING SKIES, which I was very excited about. I actually bought the first season when it came out on DVD on the strength of its reviews and was deeply disappointed to see one example after another of supposedly smart characters acting in a TSTL (too stupid to live) fashion just to ramp up the suspense. Which wasn't that ramped up because unlike WALKING DEAD, regular cast members never get killed. Terrific performances by Noah Wylie, Moon Bloodgood and Will Patton, though.
DEBS: Julia, I had the same experience with Falling Skies. LOVE Noah Wylie. Horrible writing. I think I made it through two episodes. As for Agents of Shield, maybe I'll manage a catch-up on that this week. Anything by Joss Whedon goes on my A-list. Don't even get me started on Firefly!!!!
SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I wasn't
really interested in TV in my 20s. Mostly because I didn't have the money for a
TV — and also because I just didn't think it was worth it.
The day I broke down and bought my own
set was during the 1994 Winter Olympics. Everyone was talking about figure
skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding and I just had to watch them compete.
I remember just going into Macy's, getting a really small set, and lugging it
home on the subway. I was too broke for cable, so I put it by the window and
wrapped tin foil on the antennas.
But even with a TV, I didn't watch that
much. I remember doing grocery shopping on Thursdays, so-called "Must-See
TV" night, because the stores would be empty and you could get everything
done really fast. I did like the X-files though.
It was Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire
Slayer that made me a TV addict. Tuesday nights , my boyfriend (and then
husband) and I would sit down to watch at 8 and life would stop until it was
over at 9. Ditto for Angel and Firefly.
We got into the DVR thing after we had a
baby and our schedule was upside down. Hey, I could get up and nurse the baby
at 2 a.m. AND still watch Grey's Anatomy! Now we're still pretty selective
about shows and tend to DVR them. We used to be obsessed with Friday Night
Lights. Current faves
are Breaking Bad (what a finale!), Game of Thrones,
Girls, Scandal, Orange is the New Black, Homeland and House of Cards. Oh, and
also the Golden Girls. Always the Golden Girls.
Now that my mother-in-law's living with
us, I tape some "old-school" shows and we all watch them together as
a family. The current house fave is 70s era Match Game—you know, the one with
the orange set and Richard Dawson. It's so nice to see celebrities who actually
still look like real people. Makes you realize how plastic surgery and cosmetic
procedures have really changed our idea of what's "normal."
HANK: So how about you, Reds? What
are you watching? What do you miss? Any show you liked-- that
disappeared? And do you time-shift?
R-FLEMING: I don't know about you, ladies, but my life has been hectic and then some lately. When I spend all day driving daughters and husband around, walking dogs, dashing into the grocery store/hardware store/gas station/Michaels for bags of tiny mirrors that have to be delivered to the high school (CURSE YOU SCIENCE TEACHERS AND YOUR "HANDS-ON PROJECTS"!!!) and, of course, squeezing in some time to actually, you know, make my living by writing a book-- whew! After a day like that, the only thing I want to do is fall back onto the sofa and veg out in front of the tube.
So what am I watching? Youngest and I are both into SLEEPY HOLLOW with super-dreamy Tom Mison playing an Ichabod Crane that old Washington Irving would never recognize. SLEEPY HOLLOW and our other fave, ONCE UPON A TIME, have several things in common: 1) smoldering bearded men in leather pants 2) strong female characters 3) plots that are so utterly absurd you just have to surrender your right brain and go with the flow.
Youngest tried to get me to watch REIGN, which is ostensible about Mary, Queen of Scots during the years she lived in France, but after seeing one episode, I declared a boycott. I could maybe excuse the modern prom-dress stying, or the fact the ladies of the court wear their hair like they're headed for a hippie music festival. But when the writers changed Mary's attendants names from Mary, Mary, Mary and Mary, to Kenna, Greer, Lola and Aylee (Aylee?!?!) that was a bridge too far.
Ross and I like to watch AGENTS OF SHIELD, which has plots, superheros, backstabbing, Clark Gregg (love him!) and conveniently wraps up by our bedtime on Sunday (9pm.) My very favorite show, ELEMENTARY, has just started up its third season! I remain impressed with the writers of ELEMENTARY, because setting up and solving a decent mystery in 45 minutes of screen time is close to impossible - and they consistently do it. I only figure out the murderer in about half the episodes, unlike my old fave CASTLE, where I could usually spot the killer by the second commercial break.
As you can tell, I look for sheer escapism when I watch TV. No doctor dramas, no heartfelt families struggling with blah, blah, blah. And, hopefully, nothing that gets cancelled in half a season.
This is off the TV topic, but when we're in Key West, we can walk to the Tropic Cinema. So we've seen two movies recently--GONE GIRL and THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU. Both recommended, especially the latter if you want something funny and poignant, with an upbeat ending. The ending to Gone Girl was true to the book--brutal...
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I was mesmerized by OUTLANDER, even on the episode when I said to Jonathan--this is kind of repetitious, isn't it? But I didn't care. It was gorgeous. And I want all those knit scarves. MADAM SECRETARY and THE GOOD WIFE, both wonderful. Cannot wait for more GAME OF THRONES. 
Race. You know my guilty pleasure is Project Runway, still. Being on the road so much is making me miss everything, but Jonathan is dvr'ing like mad. He happily watched baseball, knowing we'll see our favorite shows together when I get home. HOMELAND is waiting! (I have never seen Nashville, Lucy! Dare I begin...?)
HALLIE EPHRON: I confess, I do veg out in front of the TV at night. Two shows I try not to miss: THE GOOD WIFE and SCANDAL. The former is seriously good, amazing writing and acting; the second is outrageous and just ridiculously addictive. I'm addicted to ANTIQUES ROADSHOW and SHERLOCK (will there be more episodes?) Am I the only one who watched the PBS show about penguins? Mesmerizing.
