Background Noise

Everyone know that there are good television shows and bad television shows. Which shows fall into which list is a matter for popular discussion, and some would even argue that the shows in the former are only marginally better than the latter, but it would be difficult to deny that both categories exist. 

I'd like to break it down again, and say that there are two types of good television shows.

First, there are the Favorite television shows. These are the shows that you sit down to watch. You invest yourself in the characters, or the plot, or even just the excitement and suspense, but you tune in as often as possible, even if it isn't possible to watch every week, to see the story unfold. This list tends to be pretty small for anyone, and for the casual television viewer, this list might only have one show on it. For me, they are the shows that I try to make an effort to watch live, partially out of a knowingly false sense of helping the shows ratings, and partially because I don't want to wait to watch them later. On my list of favorite television shows currently on the air are White Collar, Community, Raising Hope, Falling Skies, and Castle. I watch dozens of television shows regularly, all of which I would consider "good," but that's the extent of my Favorites. 

The other type of good television show is the one I call Background Noise. Other good names for them would be distractions, time wasters, or channel-flippers. These are the shows you watch if it happens to be on the television as you're holding the channel up button on your remote. This list can be much more sizable. On my list of Background Noise would be How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Suits, Modern Family, and even Glee among many others. For me, these are the shows I subscribe to on my DVR and on Hulu, that I watch every week because they pop up in my queue, or because they are taking up space on my DVR hard drive. They're the shows you put on in the background while you're surfing facebook, or writing your blog. In fact, I'm watching Lie to Me on Netflix right now as I'm writing this. I'm still following the story, I'm just not particularly invested in it, and if I miss a line or two of the dialogue along the way, that's not the end of the world. I'll still enjoy the episode. 

The way I'm describing them, it would be easy to mistake this second subcategory for bad television shows, but they aren't. I watch them week after week because I enjoy them (or in the case of Glee, can't stand that I enjoy them). They are still good television shows in my mind. I know, because I still watch them, and I certainly don't watch everything. Most people don't watch their Background Noise list quite as religiously as I do, but that doesn't make them bad shows either. 

Bad shows would be Two and a Half Men, before or after Ashton Kutcher. Bad shows would be True Blood, even if you claim you watch it for the mythology. These are the shows that make you change the channel when you see them on the screen. To make the distinction clear, I mock fans of Glee and True Blood with equal passion, but at the end of the night I go home and I watch Glee. Glee will never be on my list of favorite shows, and I'll probably never watch another live episode again after the post-superbowl catastrophe last year, but that doesn't make it a bad show. If it was, I'd be able to avoid it a little better than I do now. 

That said, I still haven't watched the Season 3 premiere yet, so we'll see what happens.