My history of television

Someone very wise said, TV lovers aren't born, they're made. Buffy made me.

Ryan asked me to write a little introduction to myself, and since I live to please, here it is. I thought about writing a full, day-by-day account of my TV watching history, but instead I'll try to limit my natural tendency towards wordiness (I also really like using parenthesis) and make a list like Ryan did. So here's the top ten most significant moments in my life in front of the TV:

#10, Let's Get Dangerous!: I can remember very clearly being maybe 5 or 6 years old and asking my mom, "When is Darkwing Duck on? Is it on now? You have to tell me, Mom, because I don't want to miss it." What can I say; from a young age I was drawn to dark, gritty and realistic TV shows.

#9, I'm a little bit in love with Jim Halpert: Remember when The Office first started and everyone was like, "Damn, NBC is totally circling the drain, this show is gonna suck." But during the second half of the first season, which fell during spring of freshman year of college, I started hearing a few good things here or there and thought, "Wait, how did that show not get cancelled?" And then one night I was staying up late and couldn't sleep, and decided to check out the "Recommended shows" section on the Tivo I recently bought. If you've never been blessed with having a Tivo in your life, I'll explain a little bit. Based on the shows you subscribe to (aka you set the Tivo to record every new episode of a certain show), the Tivo will find programs that are similar and then record them for you. The first program I subscribed to was The Daily Show, so for a while the only shows Tivo recommended were on CNBC, which is ridiculous because I detest serious news-based TV. But eventually Tivo branched out and recorded different shows for me, but I didn't watch any of them... until The Office. That episode was "Dwight's Speech," where Jim pranks Dwight by giving him speeches from old Fascist dictators to use in his top salesman speech. A lot of the humor was based on the twisted relationships between the characters, so at the end of the episode I was slightly underwhelmed but willing to give it another chance. I saw another Tivo-ed episode, then Ryan the Hero downloaded the first and the second season-so-far for me, and I watched about 25 episodes in 3 days. Now I'm a Jim and Pam fan for life. When Jim came into the office at the end of Casino Night and grabbed Pam for the best kiss of all time, I pretty much died.

#8, Can we borrow your tv?: Veronica Mars pretty much made freshman year. I've never made friends easily, and after a month and a half of college I wondered if I was ever going to meet people I'd want to hang out with. And then the cable in our dorm room went out, and the 6 girls of 1003 were stuck without anywhere to watch Laguna Beach. But on that Tuesday night, I was way too embarrassed to go knock on the door of 1005 by myself to watch my tiny little girl detective UPN show. But Dana insisted she'd come with me, even though she'd only seen a few episodes, and so we went and asked the boys down the hall if we could watch it in their room. Danny and Ryan (and maybe Kyle?) watched it with us, and they liked it, and the four of us preceded to watch (rewatch for me) the whole first and second season together. I had this really long conversation over Thanksgiving that year with a friend who argued that using TV as a basis for friendships might work but is more artificial and shallow than friendships formed over, I don't know, volunteer work and poetry readings. My argument was, "You're a jerk. Be happy that I'm happy that I have great friends." So maybe 1003 would have become friends with 1005 regardless of Veronica Mars. But maybe not, and even though season 3 was patchy at best, season 1 is transcendently awesome and Rob Thomas is a modern day hero.

#7, I watch too much ABC Family: I'm embarrassed to include Gilmore Girls on this list, since it's pretty much the girliest show ever created and I think it's actually pretty overrated and that Amy Sherman-Palladino is more hack than genius. But I own the first six seasons on DVD (in my defense, they were on sale at Target for $15 each), and there isn't an episode I haven't seen multiple times. My relationship with this show is the definition of love-hate: Rory is a baby-talking wimp, Lorelei is a selfish brat, the grandparents are Darth Vader-level evil, the townies are annoying, and the whole Stars Hallow community is ridiculous. And yet... whenever I've had a hard day, and am tired and worn down, I turn on ABC Family and watch an old Gilmore Girls episode and at the end of the hour I feel loads better. Despite everything that's wrong with this show (and my above list is just the tip of the iceberg), it's also a little bit magical. Plus, I have very found memories of the summer after freshman year when I didn't get a job and spent three months lying by the pool, but would go to the gym every day at noon and run on the treadmill while watching this show. Final reason: Jess!

#6: You bought me a wall: I was 12 when Dawson's Creek first started on the WB, and my parents decided it was too mature for their baby girl. But my sister was allowed to watch it, so I did a lot of lurking in doorways and I may have even watched it while standing outside looking through the window. Eventually my parents decided it was easier to just let me watch it for real so we could "discuss it," and I cringe as I think of the conversation I had with mom about Dawson's parents that included the phrase, "dry-humping." But after a season or two I moved on from DC to other WB shows with less annoying characters. I watched episodes here or there, enough to have a general grasp of the plotlines, but wasn't really invested in the characters. But then there was the summer before senior year, where every weekday I had to be at work at 9, so I would wake up at 7 and watch back to back episodes of season 3 of Dawson's Creek on TBS. Season 3 is where Pacey and Joey finally get together, stick it to Dawson, then sail off together in a boat called True Love at the end of the season. It's pretty much all downhill from there, but the best of the Pacey/Joey romance was better than almost anything else.

#5, "My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it was, you're lucky to get out alive.": But was Pacey/Joey better than Angela/Jordan Catalano? Too close to call. I was 8 when My So-Called Life first aired, and while I vaguely remember being in the room while my mom watched a rerun of it on MTV, I was too young to watch it myself. But I grew up hearing about how amazing it was, and seeing how hot Jared Leto continued to be (until the whole eyeliner/band fiasco), so it was always in the corner of my mind that I should check it out. I got the DVD set for Christmas sophomore year of high school and quickly realized that some shows are legendary for a reason. Even though I was watching this show 9 years after it first aired, I could relate to everything Angela thought and felt. I think MSCL was the first show, for me, that proved that TV can depict real life, even with scripts and actors and costumes. This show is the polar opposite of Dawson's Creek, and these two high school shows are exemplary of the two types of TV I tend to really like: the hyper-stylized, no way realistic, all melodrama everyone looks like a catalog model and has a witty comment or quip ready at lightning speed (think Gilmore Girls, Friends, Veronica Mars) vs the naturalistic, earnest, sometimes painful, very heartfelt, normal-ish actors saying "Um" and "like" (Friday Night Lights, Freaks and Geeks, the Office). This past summer I sold that old box set on Ebay and got the new, rereleased set for Christmas. I haven't gotten a chance to rewatch the MSCL eps with commentary, but I feel sure when I do that I'll relate to Angela just as deeply as I did when I was 16. And I'll still be just as frustrated that we never found out how it ended, since Claire Danes was too whiny to do another season. Then, as now, I like and demand closure from my TV shows. (That's why I'm really glad I never watched the Sopranos.)

#4, Bitch is gonna get stabbed: I watched the first season of Surviver, and I was certainly into Laguna Beach. But no reality show will ever compare to Bravo's classiest bitch, Project Runway. Senior year of high school I saw an ad for it in People and thought, "Heidi Klum is hosting a reality show? That could be kind of cool." A few weeks later, in newspaper class, my friend Ali asked if I had seen it and I remembered that I wanted to check it out. I did, and every week Ali and I would gush over Austin and Kara Saun and Jay and evil, evil Wendy Pepper. This was way before the whole Tim Gunn phenomenon, and it felt like Ali and I were the only two people in the world watching this little sewing show. It got bigger, and by freshman year of college it was the only hour of the week were all 5 of my suitemates got together in the same room, and the same for another 4 suitemates sophomore year. I haven't been really watching this season; I don't know why I can't get into it (silly challenges? Uninspiring designs?) but everytime I try to watch an episode I give up after 15 minutes. But this is still the best reality show on TV, I still want Tim Gunn to be my best friend, and I still want Kara Saun to design my outfits every day for the rest of my life.

#3, ArrDev: You guys, I was in love with Michael Cera since the very first episode of Arrested Development (I'm still trying to get ArrDev to catch on as the unofficial nickname of the show), so all you bitches-come-lately who saw Superbad and decided you wanted a piece of the cute nerd action can just go to the back of the line. But anyway... this show really cemented my tendency to watch and fall in love with the low-rated, critically acclaimed, soon to be cancelled show. I can't really get on board with the "Fox is the devil for killing ArrDev too soon!" because three seasons is a decent run. It could have been treated and promoted a lot better by the network, of course, but I feel like everything after the first season was a gift. Also, this show inspired me to go to a pottery place and paint a mug bright orange, with "SAVE ARRDEV" on one side, "Michael and George Michael" on the other with little houses, and "Terrible mistake?" on the inside. If that's not dedication I don't know what is. Now if only I can get myself a Cornballer...

#2, Is that a Michael Phelps cardboard cut-out?: I don't give a fuck about sports, but I love the Olympics. I watch the Opening Ceremonies, and I mist up at all the happy athletes waving their flags. I watch the little athlete background puff-pieces, and I get a little teary at the hard-luck stories. Paul Hamm falls on his ass in the vault then comes back to win the gold medal, and I cry like a fucking baby. I adore the Olympics: the competition, the international friendliness, the 24/7 cheesiness, the incredibly toned and hot bodies of the athletes, the barely-contained rage of the robot gymnasts from Romania... there's nothing bad about the Olympics, except curling. I was dying to go to Beijing this summer but I don't think it's gonna happen; maybe London 2012. As for the winter Olympics, sure I enjoy watching figure skating, but Michael Phelps and his speedo are at the Summer Olympics so they take priority.

#1, The Chosen One: So this is where this list has been heading to since the very first line: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Maybe you've noticed that of the above listed shows, one of the main reasons they're on this list is because they had some hot dude (Logan Echolls, Pacey Witter, Jordan Catalano, George Michael Bluth, Jess Mariano...). Yes, I have a long and storied history of TV boyfriends. So I have to say, right off the bat, that BtVS isn't number 1 because of Angel or Spike or Xander or even Giles. The reason I own multiple novelizations and behind-the-scenes guides and 5 seasons on DVD (sorry Buffy, but I just can't justify getting the UPN seasons). The reason is the great writing, the badass villains and action, the friendship of the Scooby Gang, and the most inspiring little blonde girl in the history of TV. This was the first show to make me cry (when Buffy gets the Class Protector award at Prom), the first show to make me seek out an online community, and the first show I bought on DVD. Buffy introduced me to the wider genre of sci-fi and fantasy, not to mention the future works of Joss Whedon. But it mostly made me fall in love with TV-- through this show I saw how it can bring people together, create discussions, influence emotions. I haven't watched a Buffy episode in months (maybe more than a year), but it'll always be the most influential television show of my youth.

So I guess that making this in list form didn't stop me from being really, really wordy. Sorry! Mad Men recaps to follow very soon, so start preparing your martini and don't forget to sexually harass your secretary.