Appointment Television

Everyone has those couple of shows that they consider to be appointment television--the shows that you sit down to watch all the way through every week. Some people have TiVo, so they can control when their "appointments" are, although if you watch a show like 24 or Grey's Anatomy, you probably don't want to miss out on the talk at the coffee maker next morning. On the flipside, some of us watch sports religiously, and our (three-hour!) appointments change from week to week, depending on who's playing. You can't TiVo games. I know people do it, but I have never been able to watch a game on tape-delay; it's like taping the evening news.

I've never had a long list of must-see shows. In college, I watched Scrubs every week in addition to the important baseball game here and there, but everything else was just to help me procrastinate: Sportscenter, PTI, The Daily Show, etcetera.

Now, besides Scrubs on Tuesdays, I now also watch Lost on Wednesdays and The Office on Thursdays. There are a few shows that I try to watch, but don't care if I miss. 30 Rock is really funny--I've watched a few episodes--but I honestly don't remember what time it's on. I think it might be on during Lost. I feel the same way about My Name is Earl. When I can't wait to watch The Office, I'll just switch on NBC at 8 and watch Jason Lee's awesome moustache.

Well NBC is moving 30 Rock AND Scrubs to Thursdays to in hopes of returning to the good ol' days of Must-See TV: Friends, Fraiser, Seinfeld, and whatever other crap was on that people watched because they didn't want to change the channels between Seinfeld and ER. NBC has made my day! I'm all about consolidation, and Thursday night is the best night to watch TV anyway.

Look, none of these shows have the ratings of Friends, or the craftmanship of Seinfeld, but what shows do nowadays? All four shows are solid, and I can honestly say that I have often laughed out loud, by myself, while watching each one. On top of that, none of the four features a studio laugh track. Fantastic.

Scrubs belongs on Thursdays anyway. In college, Blake and I would come back from little league practice, eat dinner, finish our homework, and watch Scrubs together every Thursday. The move to Tuesday threw off my natural biorhythms. Here's hoping Season 6 is a good one!