TV Junkie: A History

I watched a lot of TV shows over the years. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. And I watched accross the board.

Keep in mind that I’m only 35 years old.

I watched The Guiding Light for two years straight (it’s a soap opera whose German title was the Springfield Story). I watched medical shows like Trapper John M.D. and lawyer shows like L.A. Law. I watched the 80s action shows from MacGuyver to Riptide. I even watched Love Boat every weekday on one of the first private channels in Germany: Sat.1. I got up at 6am on every Saturday morning to watch Rawhide (Tausend Meilen Staub, lit. “A Thousand Miles of Dust”) with a very young and pre-Fistful Clint Eastwood. I knew who Daniel Boone was around the same time I met the Cartwrights as well as the men from the Shiloh Ranch.

And last weekend I binge-watched the first Netflix show House of Cards (Big recommendation! Kevin Spacey is a brilliant Magnificent Bastard!) and I got curious as to how many shows I watched intently over the past two and a half decades.

With the help of the list on the German site Wunschliste.de I created a list of “my” shows.

I only counted live-action fiction shows, no animated shows may they be Saturday morning cartoons like Yogi Bear or Scooby-Doo or evening shows like The Simpsons or South Park. No scripted reality (which I’m avoiding to 99% anyway with the exception of Comic Book Men). In this list are only shows which I followed for more than a year unless the show itself didn’t last that long.

And the answer was: 244 246 247. Two hundred and fourty four six seven different shows I watched with active interest since I’ve started watching television. And the worst thing is: Of most of these shows I watched 90% or more episodes at least once.

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… And those that did neither nor

Deutsche Version | Those that camethose that wentthose that did both … and those that did neither nor

The Big Bang Theory

A sitcom (with laugh track) about four scientists and their hot neighbour.
I’m still enjoying this show very much. I don’t understand why they broke Penny and Leonard up (especially because it felt like one of the most normal relationships on TV) but at least they didn’t put any bad blood between them.

Bones

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth investigate murders where only a skeleton is left of the victim.
Quite a few episodes of this season where just “OK” but it’s still watch-worthy and I assume that next season will have a totally new dynamic due to the “time leap”.

Burn Notice

Michael Westen is a former spy who has been “expelled”. He now works as a “problem solver” for people whom the police can’t help.
It’s a good show but I hope that one day they’ll drop the whole “I want to go back to the spy game” aspect of it and just run with the main plot.

Castle

Richard Castle is a best-selling thriller author who solves crimes with Detective Kate Beckett who has become his inspiration for his novel heroine “Nikki Heat”.
They are only in their second year and both characters already know they have feelings for each other. Progress! While the WTWT is certainly an aspect of the show that can’t be ignored, I tune in because of the crimes they have to solve and the ways they do it. For me, it’s the unofficial sequel to Murder She Wrote.

Chuck

A guy who works in an electronics superstore get all the secrets of the government uploaded into his brain. From now on he works as a spy and helps to put the members of the most dangerous organisations behind bars.
I enjoyed the first third of the third season but then disliked where the show was going with Shaw and Sarah. Not because I’m a Charah shipper (I am that, too ;)) but because it didn’t feel real that Sarah would tell Shaw (who just came into her life) things, she didn’t share with Chuck. But now the show is great again, and I can’t wait to see the finale and the fourth season.

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