I hear American Idol opened with a song about Jesus this week. Is that true? Wow.
I have never seen American Idol. Ever. Isn’t that strange. Is it a favorite at your home? I have lots of friends who love it and gather with their family to watch each week.
Come to think of it, we’ve never seen Lost, Survivor (any variety), Amazing Race, 24 or CSI either.
Of course, that’s not really surprising since we don’t have a tv (other than one for movie viewing), but it does make me think about main stream culture and how much conversation revolves around the current tv shows.
Interesting.
Nowadays you can rent or buy an entire season of your favorite tv show. I’m so far behind with some of these long running series that I don’t know that I can catch up. By the time I finally watch Lost or 24 there won’t be anyone left to talk with. Everyone will be on to the new latest and greatest and I’ll be forced to hit old blogs and tv forums to discuss the plot intrigues.
What about you? Are you a tv watching family? Do you have favorite shows you can’t wait to see every week (when there isn’t a writer’s strike, of course)?
Do you catch them “live,” use TiVo or buy them on DVD?
If you buy, what tv shows do you own?
We have lots of old ones – Gilligan’s Island, The Andy Griffith Show, Bonanza. As well as some newer ones – Monk and Alias.
Why do you think tv is such a major source of conversation? Are we connected, as a society, through our common tv viewing?
I’d love to hear from you. Tim and I have absolutely no resistance to the television. The only way we are able to maintain any balance regarding tv is to just forgo it all together. We pretty much made the decision, as newlyweds, not to have tv in the home. We fight over the remote at hotels, however. It’s not pretty.
Kathy
I took pictures today (okay, Rachel took them) but I only got 4 hours of sleep last night and I MUST get some more tonight. Loading pictures takes time!
We have had cable TV in the past, but found it a time-stealer and waste of money when we saw how little there was worth watching, especially with children! Now we have no TV access here in Norway, and sometimes feel pretty stupid when people talk about shows, but it doesn’t bother us enough to get TV! There’s too much else worth doing with that time. We buy DVDs of whatever we want, or rent them from netflix or download them from iTunes. Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke shows are our oldie favorites. Our 11yo loves MacGyver. All the older ones of us are a bit hooked on Stargate shows.
Our favorite TV show to watch as a family is America’s Funniest Videos. We mostly rent and watch DVDs as a family. Because our kids go to bed early as they do have to get up for school, we usually don’t watch TV in the evening, although the kids watch some cartoons Saturday morning. Bill and I watch TV at night, but my new favorite show is Biggest Loser. I did hear about the worship song that was sung 2 nights in a row on Idol and am quite impressed especially at this superhyped time of Oprah and her stand in not believing in Jesus. Anyway, I think a good reason we don’t watch a lot of TV is that we do not have cable!!
I love you, my sweet Katherine. Not getting sleep BEFORE your women’s retreat is probably not too smart. I’m praying for you!!
Do I have to confess here that I watch too much tv? I don’t think I will.
I love you dear Edgrens. Aunt Kate
I’ve wondered the same thing- what is it about tv shows that give us so much to talk about? I suppose it is similar to when families would gather ’round the radio for radio shows; similar to going to plays, except I can sit in my sweats.
We’ve gone a couple seasons without a tv. The time that was hard for me was when we had no tv and no internet for a few weeks. I felt cut off from the world!
Scott is a bit more addicted to the tv than I am.
It doesn’t get turned on until evening if I KNOW there is something I want to watch; I have a few favorite shows. (AI, Lost, The Office, Amazing Race). But I think if I died, he would have the tv on ALL THE TIME.
Ok, I think two you really WOULD like The Office, and it would be worth renting the dvds. We love it; I think people either love it or hate it.
We have a few TVs of the 1970-1980 versions, so we get virtually no reception, but do enjoy watching movies. I think when televisions go digital that we will be done with network TV all together. We don’t have a television in the main part of our house which makes people actually sit and visit when they are here. I know it makes some of my family bored. They would rather be cramped in a small home with a large screen then be in ours. Oh well.
The only show that we try to watch with any regularity is Numbers on Friday nights. This is only because Sean is a calculus teacher and it thrills his heart.
We get our fix through NetFlix. They have everything we would like to watch, half of which are documentaries which we use for homeschooling. We just enjoyed Planet Earth. We only get one DVD at a time so really only have something to watch every 4 days or so which is a nice balance. Our kids have a nice DVD library to choose from, though, thanks to grandmas and grandmpas:)
Sean grew up on TV 24/7. It was never off at his house, even in the middle of the night. Whenever we go out and there is a TV he literally can not keep himself from staring at it. He doesn’t want our kids to be the same way and neither do I. Plus we just don’t have time in our days to watch TV and there are too many good books to be read.
Glad to know we are not the only ones our here:)
Well, I must be the Edgren outsider because I have a house full of tvs!
I myself, love, love, love the Food Network! I could watch it all day long. Now, my family is not necessarily inspired to eat all my experiments. However, it’s fun to play with food! We do love the reality shows – Amazing Race (makes us want to travel!), Survivor..
As much as I love watching tv though, I would much rather curl up with a great book!
You’re not missing out on much. I used to watch more TV than I do now, but quit after all the writer’s strike. I decided to reward myself for studying yesterday by watching 3 sitcoms that I love that have just started back with new shows. Other than one scene, I found that the 1 1/2 hours I watched TV quite crude, unsatisfying, unfunny, and a waste of time. I’ll probably still try to catch the Office from time to time (I just think that last night’s episode was a fluke), but other than that, I’m done.
Oh, and I love TV on DVD. I have the entire Gilmore Girls and watch about an episode or two a week. I also borrowed the first season of 24 from a friend, but I’ll wait to start watching it until the summer is here.
We are the same way: No TV because we both easily get addicted to it; and we fight over the remote in a hotel. :>) We do watch videos though. We belonged to Netflix for awhile, but realized we were using that too intensely also. So canceled our account.
Now we have Mac downloads and we discovered http://www.hulu.com where you can watch TV on the computer. But, because we use the computer for so many other things, we don’t use it for downloading TV stuff too much.
When we had TV, I could watch HGTV for hours, but it made me discontent with my own home and yard. I love the FoodNetwork. I also easily got drawn into reality shows. I did watch a season of American Idol, but realized that since I don’t listen to the music being promoted, that it really was a waste of my time to find out the winner.
I like shows like House, 24, Alias… I’ve never seen Lost either. It sounds like a show I could probably get obsessed with. I can’t stand sitcoms; usually the humor is so crass that it makes me cringe.
There are awkward moments in conversations sometimes in social events because I don’t know what everyone else is talking about, but, well, my life is so full of other things now that I really don’t miss TV at all…my relationship with my husband and children have improved dramatically since dropping TV. It has been worth it.
I always wonder when someone says they don’t have enough time in their days to do something (especially spend time in personal devotions) how much time they spend in front of the TV. It’s amazing how much more time there is and how much more energy and creativity is there when that idol is out of our lives.
Many Blessings,
Holly
we have a love/hate relationship with tv. i LOVE watching baseball and football, news: local and foxnews, and we have a few fav shows: AI (this is the first year we’ve gotton into it), monk, pysch, numbers has become a recent fav and sometimes extreme home makeover. we watch alot of movies and lots of kid geared stuff for my 10 yr old son. with his disabilities we’ve allowed him to watch stuff cuz he doesn’t play like a normal child. i actually like alot of cartoons that he watches! sad. so we pretty much have the tv on alot!
but we’ve had many seasons in life where we’ve gotton rid of the tv or cable or both. we are disconnecting our cable next week. ouch! we did it the year katrina hit and boy did i feel lost. every one was talking about the destruction and we didn’t have a clue. i really miss the news when we don’t have a tv. newspapers and radio news just isn’t the same and i haven’t gotton into watching stuff on the net like some people do. when we don’t have tv we rent netflix and love it. but like you we watch stuff that isn’t current so don’t have anyone to talk with about it. maybe we should start our own little group!
we don’t buy alot of dvd’s either cuz there’s not much i want to watch over and over and over again. renting seems to be better option for our family.
We just renewed cable this year after Luke got a promotion so he could have History Channel and I could have Food Network… but our tv is downstairs out of the main living space of the house and therefore not on much during the day. Often we won’t turn it on at night, either… except on Tuesdays when I love to watch NCIS. (It’s kind of like CSI, but with more humor than gore.)
We made a conscious decision not to have the tv in the living area when the boys were about 6 months old and I noticed they were glued to the screen… instead of playing with toys and interacting with me. My fault entirely for having it on the time. Scared me to pieces, and made me realize that I was indeed becoming addicted to the screen as well.
Thanks for the post, Kathy! Get some more sleep before your retreat, okay?
For 11 or so years we had no t.v. period. Then we had it for one summer w/ 4 channels….then nothing again….then 2 summers later (Olympics) we had it again.
THEN…we moved to a house last year where the cable was included. IT affected me SO much. I’m lazy by nature and I’d watch dumb shows for hours after everyone was asleep. Sortof junkie like.
Now that we’ve moved again, we’re back to no t.v. It’s been 1.5 months and I don’t miss it. Because I watch any show I’m really interested in online or wait until the Netflix dvd comes out.
I think it’s all about conversation and relationship. Truly…there are some family members where if I didn’t have the ability to speak about Lost or House…there would be no speaking. And I’m not exaggerating.
Yup they ended one show with Shout to the Lord (with Jesus changed out to Shepherd) then opened the next show with the same song (with Jesus back in again.)
I haven’t seen it but it was all over my christian station. People were upset… then better then upset.
I haven’t watched TV in over two months… I am DVR’ing Idol.. but what good is that going to do when I dont watch it.. there are like 18 episodes on there now. Sheesh. I just dont have the time to waste on there. Instead I read blogs
I do love the food network tho… and if I had a TV upstairs I would have it on
when I worked outside the home, yes, its what we talked about the next day at work. we have a few of our favorite shows on the DVR/TVo but alot of times we dont have time to watch, then we have to get caught up and that takes a while. But we do watch sorry to say alot of tv here. I wish we could forgo it but that would be an ugly fight (on the adult side) hehe take care . OH PS. I have not seen american idol, lost, simpsons, star trek, I try to limit to just a few other wise I would never get anything done.
I’m not a total TV addict. (Hold on, let me turn the tv volume down.)
I can stop anytime (wait! That’s a hilarious commercial!)
I don’t feel like TV takes precedence over real relationships. (Kids. SHHHH! They’re announcing the winner!!)
Anyway, I love watching tv using tivo or dvr so we can speed through things and skip commercials and watch things on OUR schedule.
At work (a church office!) there are plenty of opportunities to talk about shows, kind of like talking about sports, and it builds bridges. But i just mention that as an excuse for being a tv junkie.
I even went and blogged about American Idol three days in a row this week. It’s a sickness really. But on my last post, I at least included the video of the Idol contestants singing “Shout To The Lord” in a way that made me wish Sunday would get here sooner.
TV….such a topic of discussion. What do we do? Our priorities have dictated that we have never in 17 years of marriage bought a tv. Our 1st year of marriage my husbands parents didn’t know how we could exist with out a tv. They gave us our first which we stuck in our closet. We have never paid for cable.
Now do we watch tv…..at times yes. Right now we are following american idol. I think it is absolutely amazing that on a show that 2 years ago had the lead singer from Kiss as a judge in one of the cities tell a worship leader he would never make it because of where he was coming from and what he stood for……now that show has proclaimed the name of Jesus 2 weeks in a row. If people are reminded of Jesus because of it…..Let God work peoples hearts.
When I was nursing my 5 kids at different times I did love to sit in my rocker and watch tv…..especially with some babies that would bat the books I was reading right out of my hands:)
For the most part our tv is probably only on for 3 hours a week….that count some pbs time.(the kids like word girl:))
Will we move do the digital box in place of our rabbit ears?NAH I don’t think so. We’ll just wait for someone to get a bigger and better tv…..we’ll take their old one off their hands:) Nothing like being able to download current tv off the computer:)haven’t done it yet but it looks like a great answer a tv dictating to you …..See what a great question.
Ha. Yes, I’m one for the old TV shows, as well. Andy Griffith (though that wasn’t very good. Only good because of Barney), Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island… Also Monk and Stargate (the love of my life). Those are the ones that stand out. Oh, and Corner Gas (a Canadian show).
We own a the Best of Barney (the Andy Griffith show) and a season of Leave it to Beaver, but we’re not into Lost or AI at all–never seen them. My siblings have rented all of Lost, but they say I wouldn’t like it–too intense. I’ve overheard so many conversations on it, though, that I have a theory about what it’s all about–only maybe it’s all over now and I just haven’t realized.
Dave and I have rented Sienfeld and Friends DVDs from the library, and we go through some BBC series somewhat regularly, too–are loving Foyle’s War. I have a feeling that liking the comedy of Sienfeld and Friends says something really shallow about me, but after a tough day, it’s relaxing just to laugh.
I let the kids see a Bonanza episode we took out of the library when all the kids were home sick with the flu, but it was a bit too gruesome for my bunch–maybe in a few years. My mom loved it, so we used to watch it occasionally as kids. I’m wondering if the Avengers would be too much for them, too.
I used to watch way too much tv. Now that our little one is here, I have curtailed the boob tube drastically. I don’t even turn it on for news, because I know that I won’t turn it off. And I don’t want our daughter to be mesmerized by the box.
But I do have a few favorite shows that I like, and mostly we Tivo them and watch them on the weekend. Most of the reality shows have lost their luster – there just isn’t anything redeeming about them.
We do love watching sports in our house, so when Hubby is home, that’s what’s on. Like this weekend – the Masters. We’re big football, baseball, and golf fans.
No TV network for our family either.
I saw the YouTube of the “American idols” singing Shout To The Lord in one of the blogs, then I posted it on my blog too
We’re guilty! We have a DVR and set up series recordings for our favorites so that we can watch them at our convenience (and fast forward through the commercials!) With the exception of my Fox News addiction, I could probably go without a tv, but it’s my husband’s obsession!
I absolutely HATE television. We were TV-free for six glorious years, but alas my husband loves TV. Or at least he THINKS he loves TV. But he is completely unable to sit in front of it for more than a few minutes before he is sound asleep – complete with snoring.
That said, I do love old M*A*SH* reruns (although I haven’t seen one in a long time). I will perhaps once every two weeks sit in front of the thing for an evening, watching the home and garden channel. Or perhaps food network.
My children ADORE television and would sit in front of it for hours on end. Which is probably why I abhore it so deeply.
We do not have a DVR and our DVD player is on the fritz, but the VHS still works, so we did have a viewing of “Lady and the Tramp” last week at the urging of Brooke.
The kids and my dh watch American Idol and some other shows, but I usually don’t. I fall asleep (LOL). I do like to watch House Hunters, Designed to Sell, etc… any of the HGTV home show type programs.
Interesting post. Like you, we have never seen a single episode of any of the shows you mention at the beginning of your post. We DO have a TV, though. We just don’t watch many “popular” shows. I have to sort of agree with Ginger, I am not a big fan of TV, but my dear hubby loves “his” channels…. namely RFDTV and the Western Channel. He is a horse trainer and loves watching all the horse training shows on RFDTV. I do like to watch Monk with the boys and have lately even caught an episode or 2 of MythBusters. I also enjoy some old TV shows on DVD – like Rockford Files, Remington Steele, Greatest American Hero…. I guess my favorite channel on TV is the Weather Channel. Yes, I am a TOTAL geek.