Television

Contrary to popular belief, baseball is not America's national pastime. That would be television. Obviously.

Television Shows Worth Watching

There is very little on American television worth watching right now. I only follow three series:

• House, M.D.: Misanthrope doctor abuses his team and saves people's lives. Eight seasons in, it's not quite as good as it used to be. (Spoiler warning: Cuddy was abruptly yanked from the show at the end of season 7, removing one of the most interesting character dynamics on the show. It doesn't help that their relationship was the reason season 7 was as great as it was.)
• Castle: A novelist (Nathan Filion) abuses of his ties to New York's mayor to follow around a pretty NYPD police officer (Stana Katic) for "book research" and become a homicide case-solving duo.
• Mad Men: It's like a porthole into the 1960s. I fucking love it. You're a fool if you don't watch this, especially if you consider yourself a creative person. Sadly, Mad Men's fifth season got pushed back until March 2012.

I do also watch Saturday Night Live when it's on, but it's gotten pretty bad. SNL only really shines when the US is on the cusp of a presidential election, so perhaps it'll get better within the next year. If it doesn't, I'll probably just drop it. I sometimes watch The Colbert Report or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart whenever I hear a lot about a specific bit online, or when there's a guest I'm interested in.

There is never ever anything good on television during the summer. (Sorry, Truebies.)

Cordcutting

Increasingly, people are cutting the cord and relying entirely on the Internet to get televised content. Sadly, it's hard to do that in Canada without resorting to torrents due to complicated international licensing agreements. (More to come on this soon!)

Changelog

• Dec 2: Pan Am got cancelled so I removed it from the list of series worth watching.