Was visiting my brother today, and at one point he said something ... I'm paraphrasing, don't remember the exact quote ... but something like "you've become one of those cable teevee snobs."
Most of my friends know that we went without cable for many, many years. And when we got cable internet, I started "borrowing" basic cable with a splitter, but only to the teevee in the computer room. And then Robin bought our supercool Loewe teevee, and we hooked the basic cable up to that. But it wasn't until last March that I finally got "real" cable into the house, when the internet people said we could get a discount on our service if we added cable teevee, but our internet would go up in price if we didn't get the teevee. And when that happened, I opted for digital cable with HBO, and four months later we got HDTV and added Showtime since they had an HD channel, and now here I am, watching HBO and Showtime and INHD, not to mention Fox Sports World and Trio and IFC.
And so I guess my brother was right.
But what am I supposed to do when the best shows on television are almost all on premium cable? I understand and sympathize with people who have basic or no cable teevee ... I've spent most of my life in that position. But when I start to talk about great teevee, there's not much I can do about the part where The Wire and The Sopranos and Curb Your Enthusiasm and Six Feet Under and Oz and Sex and the City are all on HBO, Queer As Folk and Dead Like Me and Penn and Teller: Bullshit and Soul Food are on Showtime, The Office is on BBC America, Jon Stewart's on Comedy Central, Trio lives up to its motto ("pop. culture. tv."), Fox Sports World shows soccer day and night, MLS offers a pay-per-view package that allows me to watch virtually every match for the entire season for less than one PPV boxing match would cost, the Giants and Warriors have most of their games on cable ... and against that, I have at the moment a grand total of three broadcast shows I watch regularly, one each on Fox, ABC, and CBS, with my favorite show of perhaps ever, Buffy, no longer running new episodes, and my fave new series of the season, Karen Sisco, put on hiatus by ABC.
Look ... when I didn't have HBO, I knew it was out there, I knew it had some good shows, I just didn't get to watch them. I didn't blame other people for having HBO. Nor do I now blame people who don't have HBO, or don't have cable at all, or don't watch much teevee. People find other things to do with their spare time, variety is the spice of life, etc etc etc.
What I will continue to do, though, is argue with people who assume there is nothing good on teevee anymore, when in fact we are living in one of the greatest eras ever for American television. If you don't get HBO, you're missing a large part of that greatness, which is fine by me. But it's nonsense to say there's nothing good on teevee in the 21st century because of all those reality shows, or because there's too many commercials, or because they've let Friends run too many seasons, or because back in the day shows were good but nowadays they stink. And if it makes me a snob because I talk about The Wire, then so be it.
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