Another Season Begins

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

As much as I would love to say that (music) theatre is my preferred form of entertainment, it's not. Television is. I really, really love to watch TV. And I have since I was a little kid. When I was eight years old, I already planned my Tuesdays around the new Full House episode. Before I was in middle school I had a routine of shows I watched, and I did pretty much anything to win over my siblings to my choices. I actually had my dad convinced that I needed to watch Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego for school.
Shows that I love, I tend to watch often. If I've managed to somehow miss episodes here and there in a show, I make sure I've read about the "missing" episodes to ensure that I am an expert on the entire show. I think that the funniest thing about my television-watching history is that I don't think I've ever followed a show from it's series premiere before last season. Full House, Melrose Place, Home Improvement, and Boy Meets World were among the earliest shows I followed consistently, and I started all of them late. 7th Heaven, ER, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, House, M.D. and How I Met Your Mother were also shows I began to love well after they began. Heck, The Facts of Life, Beverly Hills 90210, Seinfeld, and Doogie Howser are just a few shows that I love now that I never saw once in original run.
In the last year, I began Lincoln Heights and The Secret Life of the American Teenager about when they started (had to catch both pilots online, but that's close enough). Interestingly, they're both ABCFamily shows, but I rather enjoy them. Unfortunately, they run at opposite times of the year, so I won't be watching them together regularly.

The stimulant for this post is the fact that my current "main shows" for the upcoming season begin tonight. In less than two hours, House, M.D. will be back in action, and it certainly looks to be an interesting season. In the current Entertainment Weekly, the main featured article questions what the show will do now to maintain its audience (given that it's already pulled some major stunts like killing off characters and re-doing half of the main cast). We'll see. The crowd is headed over, and pizza and cream cheese cookies will abound!
And in case you were interested, other shows I'll be watching this season (mostly beginning next week) will be How I Met Your Mother, Opportunity Knocks, Lincoln Heights, and ER (final season!). I may try out Privileged, but that's going to begin cutting into my time for Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and Little People, Big World when that returns.