TVSquad

Ah Festivus, it's a magical time of the year. Hurricanes, week long power outages, how can you not be in the mood to celebrate? While my real world desires would lean more toward the practical, like a generator, so the next time 5000 trees get thrown on the power lines I don't have to miss Las Vegas, Dr. Who and South of Nowhere, these are some of my TV universe wishes for the coming year.

TV on DVD - Every week I read Bob's list of the new DVD releases, and every week I have the same reaction. How can THAT be coming out on DVD but none of my top 5 most wanted are? Seriously, there is more of a market for the Stacked DVD than any of these? I'm not greedy. I'll settle for just one of these shows to finally get the DVD set it deserves. Cupid, Beggars and Choosers, Going To California, Maximum Bob, or Mr & Mrs Smith.

As we all get ready to eat way too much pie and nap/shop (choose your own adventure) away a couple days it's time to give thanks for that which is good in television land. So, this year, I'm thankful for...

1: Tivo. I resisted the siren's call of Tivo for a long time, opting instead to stick with the complex system of tapes, VCR's and my computer that had kept me up to date for years. But finally, after hearing again and again from the TV Squad readers to just get a Tivo already, I did. And it has been as good as everyone said it would be. I'll say it. You were all right. I was wrong.

I'm still hoping for all the goodies to work with OS X, or dare I say, Ubuntu, but for now I can begrudgingly run Windows. The ability to archive shows to another machine is fantastic, and if you do the math, it works out to about the same price as using tapes for storage anyway.

The A.V. Club has a list up on their site featuring 15 "lamentably lost" TV shows that only made it one season or less. As with anything where you start listing things, there are going to be omissions. And probably more glaring, there will be inclusions that make you scratch your head and say, 'Wha-huh?" Overall, I like their list. It has the usual suspects that I would have expected with Firefly, Freaks and Geeks, and Now and Again. They also included a couple that I don't think get enough press with That's My Bush and Cupid. Really, the more press that Cupid can get the better, because it really deserves a DVD release.

The wha-huh inclusion for me though, Cop Rock. It was an original concept, sure, but "lamentably" implies that you feel some kind of sorrow that it's gone. I think 11 episodes was more than anyone needed to get full and complete closure with Cop Rock. As far as omissions, the shows that come to mind right away for me are Going To California, Keen Eddie, Maximum Bob, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., and Wonderfalls. Going To California remains my number one most wanted DVD set, and Maximum Bob is in the top five. I'm curious to hear what other people view as the ones that got away.