• Friends (?) – Julia has watched all of the seasons, and I’ve enjoyed many, many of the episodes.
• Grey’s Anatomy (?) – we have now catch right up to the just air 4th season finally.
• Boston Legal (?)- we’ve watched the 1st two seasons, and are just watching the 3rd.

Julia and I have been watching a lot of TV as we spend hours comforting our 6 week old son — and Julia spends many more hours feeding him.

We don’t have cable TV, because I find the cost and the hours of commercials insulting — Julia puts up with me Also, not having it likely contributes to us spending more time doing other things including reading aloud to each other (well, we did that a lot before W was born anyway).

We rent a lot of movies and whole TV series from our local mom and pop video store, Nighthawk Video. Most movies disappoint. It’s difficult to tell if a movie is going to be any good based on the back of the box. I’ve been surprised by some television shows though, and once you’ve found a good one you, there are hours of entertainment available.

Movies have their A list actors, big budget special effects, and advertising campaigns — many times after seeing a movie, I feel the trailer told a different story. Television shows’ success are more dependent on the writing and the whole casts’ acting.

I used to be focused on all of those aspects that movies have going for them, but I find myself now very conscious of the writing and enjoying one role acting.

My guess is television is a much easier format to write well for. TV doesn’t have to try as hard as a movie.

One thing that was missing in television for me was the brilliant sound tracks found in movies, but HBO and Showtime programming changed that, and Grey’s Anatomy reflects this.

Watching TV shows in batch like this does trade away the suspense, but I’m a little frustrated by the cliff hanger style of most shows on TV currently. I don’t know if I could have handled watching the 1st season of 24 (?), if I had to wait away in between each other. Later seasons (I can’t believe there are 6 seasons!) , and many others shows tried to copy this format, but in all those cases it feels forced — the worst of the bunch Lost.

Lately, we’ve been really enjoying Friends, Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal. Julia has also been watching Desperate Housewives (?), but I haven’t acquired a taste for it. Previously, we really enjoyed Rome (?).

I bought Firefly (?) to watch again. At $25 for fourteen 45 minute episodes, TV series are also a lot better value when buying.

What other shows should be check out?