Child of TV meme

With a tip of the hat to Jason and Konstantin, here is my own confession on having seen too much TV.

I’m changing the rules slightly, thinking that my approach provides a better “classification”:
Italics if I had enough interest in the show to see a few episodes.
Bold if I watched the show for a long period of time.
Bold Italics if I either believe that I watched all episodes of the show, or watched so many of them in syndication over the years that quite possibly I’ve seen them all, or at least did not miss a single new episode since starting to watch it.

Here we go:

•24
I was watching too many other shows when its first season came around, so it did not make the cut. Since then, it’s been a function of “I have not seen it from the beginning, and I don’t want to start until I get to do that first”. Possibly, never.

•7th Heaven
•ALF
•Alias
The plot spiral kept getting way too convoluted with every season, but we stuck with it through its entire run.

•American Gothic
•America’s Next Top Model
•Angel
•Arrested Development
•Babylon 5
•Batman: The Animated Series
•Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
•Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
•Baywatch
•Beverly Hills 90210 (original)
•Bewitched
•Bonanza
•Bones
To be honest, I only started watching it from the third season on, but haven’t missed an episode since. It is not so much about criminal investigations or science that attracts me to it. It’s about character interaction.

•Bosom Buddies
•Boston Legal
Every single episode, from start to finish (the same goes for the show that BL was spun off, The Practice, which is not on this list for some reason). Besides general hilarity and great acting from several cast members, the courtroom riffs of James Spader’s Alan Shore were always priceless (whether or not I agreed with them personally). I was sad to see this one end.

•Boy Meets World
•Brothers And Sisters
•Buffy the Vampire Slayer
•Californication
•Chappelle’s Show
•Charlie’s Angels
•Charmed
•Cheers
I saw it mostly in syndication, but I’d be surprised if there is an episode I did not see.

•Chuck
•Clarissa Explains it All
•Columbo
•Commander in Chief
•Crossing Jordan
•CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
•CSI: Miami
•CSI: NY
•Curb Your Enthusiasm
•Dark Angel
I was genuinely disappointed when it was cancelled after a couple of seasons. Jessica Alba was the sole reason. She headlined my 5 Celebrities The Wife Should Allow Me To Date list for quite a while.

•Dark Skies
•DaVinci’s Inquest
•Dawson’s Creek
•Dead Like Me
•Deadwood
•Degrassi: The Next Generation
•Designing Women
•Desperate Housewives
•Dexter
•Dharma & Greg
•Different Strokes
•Doctor Who
Maybe it is a telling sign of me not being a die-hard sci-fi fan, but I never could figure out what’s so great about this longest-running show.

•Dragnet
•Due South
•ER
Every single episode over its 15 seasons. With the departures of George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, eventually Noah Wyle, my interest waned a little, but it became sort of a loyalty thing for us to continue watching the series. It had its glory moments in the last few years, so I’m not complaining.

•Everwood
•Everybody Loves Raymond
•Facts of Life
•Family Guy
•Farscape
•Fawlty Towers
One word: Screwdriver. Whenever I ordered my favorite cocktail while in a British pub, it invariably drew remarks related to the FT episode when Americans arrive at John Cleese’s inn and he bents himself out of shape at their order of drinks. Because I’ve seen that particular episode, it scored me quite a few respect points with my local friends.

•Felicity
One of those “let’s try watching this new show that they advertize” mistakes. Dropped it half-way into the first season.

•Firefly
•Frasier
•Freaks & Geeks
•Friends
With Becky, we have been re-watching all of the seasons on DVD.

•Fringe
Tried it for three or four episodes. Can’t work up much excitement about it. It’s all about characters for me, I suppose, not the plots or thrills, and the characters in Fringe seem too bland.

•Futurama
•Get Smart
•Gilligan’s Island
•Gilmore Girls
•Gossip Girl
•Grey’s Anatomy
•Grange Hill
•Growing Pains
Where is The Full House on this list? Or Charles’s in Charge? The first few years after coming to the States, we watched several family sitcoms on NY Channel 11 syndication. GP was one of them, but it was low on the list of priorities, and I am not sure how many episodes of it I actually watched. TFH or CiC, I definitely saw them all.

•Gunsmoke
•Happy Days
Same as “Growing Pains” entry.

•Hercules: the Legendary Journeys
•Heroes
Similar to “24”. Did not get to it from the start, felt that I’m not going to enjoy it unless I saw it chronologically, never got to it.

•Home Improvement
•Homicide: Life on the Street
•House
Started with the second season, haven’t missed an episode since. As with “Bones” or “NCIS”, the medicine in this show is secondary (and, actually, sometimes annoys me to no end). Human interaction is key.

•I Dream of Jeannie
•I Love Lucy
I suspect that I’ve seen enough of it to practically qualify for bolded ornamentation.

•Invader Zim
•Invasion
•Hell’s Kitchen
•JAG
From probably the third season on. Can’t say that I have exceptional memories about it, although the interaction between two main characters was not unlike that I see in “Bones” today.

•Jackass
•Joey
I did watch quite a lot of Blossom, though, along the same lines as “Growing Pains”.

•Kim Possible
•Knight Rider
My brother was a much bigger enthusiast of it than I was.

•Knight Rider: 2008
•Kung Fu
•Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
•La Femme Nikita
•LA Law
I’m sure I saw more than one season of it, along with a couple of other lawyer shows, such as Civil Wars and Reasonable Doubts, in my first few years in America.

•Laverne and Shirley
•Law and Order
•Law and Order: SVU
•Law and Order: CI
•Leverage
I watched one single episode, having heard from my brother that he liked it. Did not find the characters interesting enough and the plot did not make up for it. Sorry, brother.

•Little House on the Prairie
•Lizzie McGuire
I saw enough of the glimpses of it with my kids in front of the TV so that it qualifies. Same goes for Hannah Montana.

•Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Teri Hatcher featured on my “5 Celebrities” list for a while.

•Lost
Despite the acclaim that it seemingly got over the years, I was never interested in this one.

•Lost in Space
•M*A*S*H
•MacGyver
•Malcolm in the Middle
•Married… With Children
•McLeod’s Daughters
•Melrose Place
•Miami Vice
•Mission: Impossible
•Mod Squad
•Monk
•Mork & Mindy
•Murphy Brown
•My Life As A Dog
•My Three Sons
•My Two Dads
•Mythbusters
•NCIS
From the introductory “JAG” tie-in through all of the seasons so far. Again, character interaction is priceless.

•Ned Bigby’s Declassified School Survival Guide
•Nip/Tuck
•Numb3rs
•One Tree Hill
•Oz
•Perry Mason
•Power Rangers
•Press Gang
•Prison Break
•Private Practice
•Privileged
•Profiler
•Project Runway
•Psych
•Pushing Daisies
•Quantum Leap
•Queer As Folk (US)
•Queer as Folk (UK)
•ReGenesis
•Remington Steele
•Rescue Me
•Road Rules
•ROME
•Roseanne
•Roswell
•Sanctuary
•Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
•Scrubs
•Seaquest DSV
•Seinfeld
•Sex and the City
Natasha owns the complete series on DVD. I always watched with her when it was first run on HBO.

•Six Feet Under
•Slings and Arrows
•Smallville
•So Weird
•South of Nowhere
•South Park
•Spongebob Squarepants
See “Lizzie McGuire”.

•St. Elsewhere
•Star Trek
•Star Trek: The Next Generation
I often say that I learned English while watching TNG. I also became an Earl Grey tea aficionado because of Capt. Picard.

•Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Watched it for three seasons, at least, eventually got bored. Didn’t much like the main cast, and the adventures were not as exciting in a stationary environment.

•Star Trek: Voyager
Maybe, a season and a half. Did not compare in any way to the earlier series.

•Star Trek: Enterprise
Gradual disappointment in DS9 and V led me to ignore this Star Trek incarnation altogether.

•Stargate Atlantis
•Stargate SG-1
I liked the movie that gave the show its birth. The show, by comparison, looked pretty bland.

•Starsky & Hutch
•Superman
•Supernatural
•Surface
•Survivor
•Taxi
•Teen Titans
•That 70’s Show
•That’s So Raven
•The 4400
•The Addams Family
•The Amazing Race
•The Andy Griffith Show
•The A-Team
•The Avengers
•The Beverly Hillbillies
•The Big Bang Theory
Becky is a huge fan. I sort of stopped watching sitcoms in the last few years. Occasionally coming across it, I find this particular one quite amusing.

•The Brady Bunch
•The Cosby Show
•The Daily Show
Only in online snippets.

•The Dead Zone
•The Dick Van Dyke Show
•The Flintstones
•The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
•The Golden Girls
•The Honeymooners
•The Jeffersons
•The Jetsons
•The L Word
•The Love Boat
•The Magnificent Seven
•The Mary Tyler Moore Show
•The Monkees
•The Munsters
•The Office (US)
•The Powerpuff Girls
•The Pretender
A season, maybe two. I kinda liked the premise, but got quickly bored with the execution.

•The Real World
•The Shield
•The Simpsons
American popular culture definitely leaves me scratching my head in this case. Silly, occasionally funny, maybe. Why is this cartoon sitcom attracts universal acclaim is beyond me. (My own brother seems to like it a lot – go figure!)

•The Six Million Dollar Man
•The Sopranos
Watched the first three seasons religiously, then got bored with violence. After its run ended, I suddenly wanted to see what happened to all of the characters, so I got my hands on the remaining seasons and watched them all.

•The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Kids, again.

•The Twilight Zone
•The Waltons
•The West Wing
During its run, I considered it the best hour on television. Probably the only show that I occasionally think would be grand to revisit one day.

•The Wonder Years
Possibly, I’ve seen more of it than I recall. Another favorite in my early years in the US.

•The X-Files
Not a big fan of paranormal, me. And the show never felt coherent to me.

•Third Watch
•Three’s Company
•Twin Peaks
•Twitch City
•Unfabulous
•Ugly Betty
•Veronica Mars
•Weeds
•Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
•Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
•Will and Grace
•Wings
•Xena: Warrior Princess

And there it is. The list left off quite a few of past favorites – such as Party of Five, Chicago Hope and Ally McBeal, besides the ones already mentioned in comments, or my current hands-down favorite Lie To Me. Even though my exposure to American TV is at least a half shorter than that of an average American of my age, I seem to have watched a lot of TV in these past two decades.

And that’s not counting all of the sports… Oy!