I like to spend a fair bit of time watching tv, and just recently we got Foxtel
(WAs only cable station, comprising of about 30 channels), so the amount of time
wasted watching mindless shite has increased dramatically in the month..
I do, however, have some more shameful tv-watching practices, the main case being Neighbours. For the couple of people out there who may not know, Neighbours is a soapie set in the Melbourne town of Erinsborough, and is completely shit. The only thing is that it is very fucking addicting. Every weeknight I tune in to find out the latest hot goss from Ramsay St. (the street where everyone lives, and the world ends according to the shows' makers). I cant help watching this show, even though I realise that it is a complete waste of time, film and money. Although I write it off, I must say that I love the show, and when it gets taken off the air (for the summer, which I'm suffering through at the moment) Im hanging out for the show to start back up again.
My fave comedy shows on tv are probably The Larry Sanders Show (shown everyday on
Foxtel!!!), The Tom Green Show (a crazy canadian guy who does the most bizarre shit ever), The Fast Show (you have to watch it a few times to appreciate it), The
Newsroom (awesome black comedy from Canada), Seinfeld, and the Simpsons (yep, I like it
too). Unfortunately, all of these shows (apart from Seinfeld and the Simpsons) are only
shown for a few months per year on Australian tv, and are often on late at night and are
never advertised when they come back on air, so often I miss a lot of episodes due to the
fact I dont know the shows back on, which is extremely annoying.
A word of warning to people watching The Fast Show for the first time: dont expect
to find the first (or second or even third) episodes of the shop that you watch funny. The
show is made up of a heap of different characters, who say or do the exact same thing each
week. The first couple of times I saw the show I didnt think too much of it, but I
grew to love it, and SBS (diverse tv channel in WA) had that and then The Newsroom
together on Saturday nights, so it made for an awesome hour of telly.
Another thing that I like on tv are the talk shows. By this I dont mean Oprah or Donahue (although Im dying to see the episode with Marilyn Manson on it), but instead Jerry Springer or old Ricki Lake. I love it when the guests have full-on arguments with themselves and the audience (comprising mainly of "Shes a hoe, Ricki!" and "Dont go there girlfriend!"), and sometimes have brawls. This may sound silly to some, but I rank watching guests fighting on talk shows above watching boxing for pure fighting entertainment value.
I almost forgot one of my favorite comedy series of all time, Blackadder. This four part series is fucking hilarious, and is set in four different time periods during English history. Blackadder is written By Ben Elton and Richard Curtis, and Rowan Atkinson plays Edmund Blackadder, the bastard main character. It also features special guests like Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall, and is just awesome. My favorite of the series would have to be Blackadder2, but I really like them all a lot (except for the first one, which isn't that great).