Week 2: Cable

I miss “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

I was on Season 5 of catching up on “Buffy” (I never actually watched it when it was on air, and only decided in recent years that I should have seen it) and I stopped watching last week just when the show introduced Buffy’s sister Dawn, as if we’re all supposed to accept that she was always there and the whole thing makes sense as if I wouldn’t question Harriet the Spy suddenly showing up, and then the episode ends with no explanation at all, and needless to say I went into cable-only week rather frustrated.

So. I’m one day in to the cable-only week and I already miss the shows and movies I was catching up on Netflix and the web-only series I’ve gotten so used to.

To start, I couldn’t stream “The Daily Show” or “Colbert Report” the day after they aired online as I usually do. I also try to catch the interview series “Speakeasy” on MadeMan.com once a week, but it looks like I’ll miss this one.

I think it took a few days for me to get used to the fact that “only cable” meant ONLY cable.

No streaming online was a bigger restriction than I thought. I even missed the epic dance video Stephen Colbert made in response to Daft Punk’s cancellation on his show – I didn’t know I should have stayed up for it until the next day! Those episodes are getting recorded from now on.

Following the trend of watching from the DVR, I tried out recorded episodes of Sundance Channel’s “The Writers’ Room,” then watched “The Soup” and “Children’s Hospital” this week. The latter is a definite DVR show – it’s on at midnight, but worth the time.

One thing I noticed by mid-week was how much DVR takes up in my TV schedule. I only got DVR added onto my already annoyingly large cable bill two years ago, and now I feel like I watch more recorded TV than live TV. Why watch TV when the programming departments tell me to when I can watch it any and all of the time?

The worst of this week was when I got a cold and had no streaming options at all. No catching up on old shows (seriously, someone tell me what happens next on “Buffy”), no watching TBS’ “My Boys” on Netflix again years after cancellation, no extras on ComedyCentral.com, no terrible movies to fall asleep to. I was stuck with cable, which on a sick day, lying on the couch, equals watching a lot of repeats of crime shows and not remembering who dunnit at all. If anyone out there has gone an entire sick day without watching part of an episode “Law & Order,” you’re not doing it right.

All in all, it turns out that when I take away online streaming, Apple TV and all TV content via the Internet, I don’t watch nearly as much TV. While that path may be way better for my productivity, it’s definitely cutting into my catching up on “The Daily Show” and Internet comedy time.

Let’s hope next week of only Apple TV proves more promising…

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