I like to watch

I'd say I'm not a big television watcher and part of the reason for that is the free-to-air networks who seem to be making a concerted effort to get viewers to switch to pay TV by showing mostly bilge and supplementing that by showing good programs out of order, missing episodes, missing crucial scenes (e.g. what did happen to that villain Superboy was tussling with on the bridge?), moving the timeslots around, running shows likely to have the same audience on at the same time etc. There again they were committing all these sins years before the advent of the video player and the Fox Network.

The other reason is because I am a net nerd and prefer the interactivity that goes with this screen. It's a habit that I cultivated when I shared a house with a guy who hogged the television (fair enough it was his but if you're going to have it in the loungeroom..)

And it's not strictly true. My viewing hours have crept up with the running of so many interesting docs on SBS and I've even succumbed to catching the odd episode of Idol or X Factor. Plus any game show that asks general knowledge questions instead of the price of an alligator suitcase (unless that is general knowledge). Anyway I don't watch all those multi-murder shows and I only tune in intermittently to the plethora of office comedies and family sitcoms; generic in the extreme. But there is one series that I do follow: The Secret Life Of Us. This is such a sweet show, nuanced, character-driven, and basically true-to-life. Okay, as one former colleague remarked "No one gets as much as Evan" but a little fantasy into the mix doesn't hurt. I'm thinking that this is the first 'soap' that shows an Aboriginal girl having various relationships with all manner of guys, that shows gays within a wider, unstereotyped context, that shows that young people living in sharehouses in Melbourne do take drugs. And it has these fabulous gentle resolutions that ring true for me.
It's just a pity that it lost its original popular momentum and is now relegated to the 10:30 timeslot. Luckily I'm a night owl (even if I do have to get up at five in the morning)