Shows you'll never watch

I was having lunch recently with fellow comedy scribe/blogger Earl Pomerantz and he posed an interesting question. “How many shows do you have on your DVR that you never watch?”

The short answer is: a lot more than I realized.

First off, I’m embarrassed to say there are two of my FRASIER episodes that have been languishing unwatched for about a month. I saw they were going to be on, taped them since I hadn’t seen them in awhile and really liked them, and so far have not found the time to watch them.

The way I know I’m officially over a series is when I see there are eight episodes waiting to be screened. If it’s May and I just now am getting to the Christmas episode, it’s time to cut and run.

THE BLACKLIST was one of those shows. Loved the pilot, stayed with it for half a season, and then it just got too absurd for me. UNDER THE DOME was another. They’d all be dead by now. That’s a logic problem I have trouble getting past.

I used to keep episodes of shows I really liked but then realized I never go back and watch them again. How many times can I see Will Gardner die? Or Piper Perabo run full speed in high heels?

When I hear of new shows coming on I try to catch their debuts. But half the time, when left with the prospect of actually sitting down and watching them, I end up hitting the delete button. Do I really want to devote a half-hour to some new sitcom that the network obviously knows is shit or they wouldn’t have premiered it in May?

Generally, once a month I’ll scroll down the list of movies TCM is showing and flag three or four. And then rarely watch them. In theory, it would be great to see GUNGA DIN again. In reality, why am I going to see GUNGA DIN for the tenth time? The old movies I tend to actually watch tend to be cheesy, kitsch, stunningly bad, B movies. I watched GO JOHNNY GO, a ‘50s rock n’ roll schlock film starring D.J. Alan Freed that made Ed Wood movies seem over produced. THE GREEN SLIME is another masterpiece I caught up with. CITIZEN KANE I deleted.

I’m also quicker on the trigger finger. If there’s a show or movie I’m not lovin’, I’ll kill it in the middle. Why waste my time when THE GREEN SLIME is waiting on my menu?

I’ll also record Dodger games, which is really stupid because they replay them five times a day. Sometimes I think I should save a couple of games because this is probably Vin Scully’s last year calling them, but seriously, five years from now I’m going to keep watching a Dodger-Diamondback game from April of 2014 where the big moment was Mark Trumbo not hitting the cutoff man?

I’ll tape documentaries I hear are great and all caring citizens should watch. But honestly, if I’ve got an hour and my choices are SHARK TANK or political injustice in South Africa I’m watching some idiot try to sell chocolate bars made out of grasshoppers.

There is now sooooo much product. Not only are there shows I’ve never heard of, there are networks I’ve never heard of. So not only do I have to be very selective as to what I want to watch, I have to be very selective among the shows I DO want to watch. Even shows I myself wrote.

DVR capacities are expanding. 200 hours of space. 400 hours of space. But so what? That’s just more hours you can fill with shows you’ll never watch. What we really need to do is add to the length of days. Expand them to 200 hours each. If Steve Jobs were still alive I bet Apple would have introduced such a device. That’s what it’s going to take to start watching WHITE COLLAR again. Or my FRASIERS.