TV for Dummies

Okay, now that it’s taken my laptop a good 10 minutes to finally decide it’s going to work for me, I can start tonight’s post.

For all intents and purposes, I don’t watch a lot of TV. In fact you could say that my viewing habits are practically nil when you consider the shows I watch on a regular basis: Big Bang Theory and Cosmos. That’s honestly it, and I just started with BBT this year.

How little TV do I watch? This may blow some minds but I’ve never owned a DVR nor ever had the desire to. Now I’m not sure when the DVR was invented but I can say that I haven’t recorded a show since I owned a VCR and even in my latter days of owning a VCR, I didn’t record much. I suppose a few reasons why I don’t watch much are that a) having been a background actor, it’s hard for me to find any escapism in them and b) they mostly seem like a monumental waste of time.

Dancing B-list stars don’t impress/entertain me, nor do “reality” shows. Also, I never subscribed to the cable channels that showed the most popular shows. We also literally and figuratively cut the cable cord a few months ago and haven’t missed a thing. (Roku, Hulu, Chromecast and broadcast TV are what we now use and even then, I rarely watch anything.)

I had to turn to my Facebook friends to give me some suggestions about today’s most popular shows so that I could take a stab at writing what I think they’re about or at least come up with an embellishment that would be slightly entertaining. They spoke, I listened.

Here, then, are just a few of their suggestions along with my ideas of what may transpire when watching said shows. Keep in mind that I’m totally clueless about most of them; I may know a character’s name but as far as plots and everything else, I’m completely lost.

24: I know a little about this one. From what I understand, Jack Box runs around on his cell phone while pointing his gun at people. I hear he also shoots it quite a bit, mostly for fun. A real renegade who needs a Bluetooth.

Castle: Seems simple enough. It takes place in a castle, right? It would have to with a name like that. I’d wager there’s always some kind of battle going on either within it or outside of it for complete reign of the country. I could be wrong, though.

Game of Thrones: This sounds like an imported Japanese game show in which contestants are made to eat ridiculously bad foods (or insects or insect droppings) to the point of nausea. Then, once they are near vomiting, they must play a game of Musical Chairs only the chairs are port-o-potties, or the “thrones.” The remaining contestant gets the throne, and the right to use it. In Japan, the show would be known as Bidet Sickness Impulsive! (ビデ病気インパルス!)

Veep: Veep is about an alien who was sent to earth on a recon mission. He has taken on a human form so as not to blow his cover. We won’t know what his real mission was until the final episode.

Mom: This is a spinoff based on the Futurama character Mom. With her three sons in tow, the comedy (slap) never (slap) stops (slap)!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The acronym stands for Super Human Intelligence with an Emphasis on Language Detection. It’s about a group of proofreaders who proofread medical documentation in several languages by day and fight crime by night. Gee, this plot sounds really familiar, except the fighting crime part. I don’t have a superhero outfit.

Naked and Afraid: Some things don’t need an explanation.

Person of Interest: It’s a live show, 22 solid minutes (with 8 minutes of commercials, of course) of The Most Interesting Man in the World dispensing his wisdom to callers via Skype.

I think you get the idea.

Yes, I’m totally clueless. And no, I’m not ashamed of it.