The Barest Bones

So I like nattering on about TV, and about the way people consume TV, and the way I personally consume TV, and whenever I say "TV," you can safely read that as "narrative." And when I make these enormous lists of things that I watch, I don't know if I fully acknowledge that there are shows that just kind of...play in the background of whatever I'm doing or thinking about at the time.

I could be watching an episode of Castle (a show which I admire for its utter and quirky solidity), and react to it, and have reactions to it, and never actually engage it at all. I don't inhabit it; it doesn't inhabit me. And Castle actually rates relatively high-medium, in terms of grabbing my attention.

I watch a lot of TV, but that doesn't necessarily mean I engage with a lot of TV. It's there, and I'm happy it's there. I can pick it up, and I can put it down again.

I watch/I engage in/I dwell upon/I entwine with four shows on a regular basis:

1. How I Met Your Mother
2. The Good Wife
3. Cougar Town
4. Community

And when the time comes, Doctor Who.

This doesn't mean I can't do the same with other shows, or that I don't, when the mood strikes me. Or, rather, when something, some plot twist, some character, some turn of phrase strikes me. (Castle did do this, early in its run, when the titular character complained about a serial killer's sloppy grammar--the rhetorical situation of a murder. Horrifying and fascinating, and I paid attention to that.) I just don't do it all the time. I can't.

That's tiring.

That said, I fully expect and gleefully anticipate my attention to be wholly consumed by the reignition of the Harry Potter franchise. ♥