I'm Excited About the Fall TV Season

I love television.  I know that there are people out there who turn up their noses at TV, who call it the "Idiot Box", but these people are clueless.  You get out of a medium what you put into it.  I grew up with television, watching shows in black and white at first, then in the hyperbrilliant colors of the 70s.  When I was a kid, at 7pm, we gathered as a family to watch whatever it was that my parents wanted to watch.

As a family, we would look forward to the fall season of television to revisit old friends and to find new ones.  There were three channels, after all, and we wouldn't want to regret our choices.  There was no DVR, no VCR, no way to watch the other stations while viewing a show.  You had to make a choice.  My mother would read over the Fall TV Guide and decide what we would watch, and that was that.  Maybe a kid would get lucky and catch the show as a re-run during the summer, but by then everyone else had moved on.

I used to stress over the TV.  I know, it sounds crazy these days, but it is true.  My parents ruled the channels, and they didn't always watch the popular shows.  Television was a big topic at school. Only music was discussed more.  When that KISS movie premiered on one of the networks, it was all the students talked about at lunch and between classes.  I felt like part of the group because I had actually seen something that my classmates had watched.  So I stressed over the television. What if I missed a show and all the cool kids saw it and they made fun of me?  

Now I am a grown up, and I have control of the remote.  I'm practically giddy with the power the remote brings, but it's okay if we miss a show.  No stress!  We have cable, and DVRs, and On-Demand programming. We have Netflix, too. We don't have to miss anything!  We can set shows to record while we aren't at home, and watch them later.

No stress.

I enjoy the anticipation of the fall television season.  I am excited about my favorite shows, like Arrow, Supernatural, and The Walking Dead, returning to the screen.  My son is very excited about the return of The Goldbergs.  The entire family is eagerly awaiting the return of The Big Bang Theory, so we can find out if Sheldon and Amy are still dating. 

There are also new shows to try out.  Supergirl looks interesting, for example.  The show Heroes Reborn is a must-see, as is Blindspot.  Science fiction shows seem to be very popular right now, and as a family we are excited about that.  Neil Patrick Harris' new show deserves a look, too.  I am sure that we will be overwhelmed at first with the abundance of our viewing choices, but that doesn't matter.

That's where the DVR and On-Demand will come in handy.  Because while all of these shows are wonderful, our life also includes soccer practice, homework, doctor visits, and other fun.  We can do all these things without being worried about missing our shows.  No stress.  And next summer, when there's "nothing" on, we can find shows we missed on Netflix.  All these options are wonderful.  I'm not nostalgic about my childhood in this regard.

What shows do you plan to watch this fall?