I spent years as a kid indulging in passive media as a primary means of entertainment. Cartoon heroes, after school power rangers, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon made up a huge chuck of my entertainment budget. In later years as games became more prevalent and easily accessible, active entertainment began to overshadow my viewing habits of what was becoming a passive form of entertainment. I let beloved shows go unwatched, missed out on mainstays of the nerd community, and I’ve begun to miss references. I was starting to feel left out of conversations and jokes I should have been in the heart of.
The revelation hit when I attended my first really big panel at Dragon*Con. Super cool hotel roommate Christiana Ellis had mentioned wanting to attend the Venture Brothers panel and I tagged along. The panel was a blast but I hadn’t known the cosplayer waiting in line before us had been a character from the show until a number of people pointed it out. I was two seasons behind on a show I loved. Toss on the Doctor Who premiere that weekend I couldn’t watch (4 seasons behind) and I was getting reminded continuously reminded that I was missing out on some really cool stuff. It’s time to correct that.
I’m not going to be able to mass consume all of the awesome media of the past ten years I’ve missed in a short time period. While mainlining a show is fun, with NaNoWriMo coming up I will still need to limit my entertainment hours versus my productivity hours. I’m developing a sort of network schedule to help get caught up with some of the shows gone by. My week nights will have a limit of 1.5 hours of programming which will let me watch two 42 minute shows or a handful of 22 minute shows. My weekend will double that time for me to catch up some of the movies I’ve missed. I’ll never ever be truly caught up, but at least I can plow through the hits on my list and maybe even clean up my Netflix Instant Queue.
I am going to release my schedule each week in the event someone wishes to join in. You can find the Google Doc here although wait a day or so for me to populate it. If you have suggestions for shows toss me a comment; I’ll be happy to add it to the schedule. I have no intentions to become a couch potato with this plan but I do want to keep up with media outside the gaming habit. It’s part of maintaining a place in the culture I love and adore. Shared experiences come in so many different ways and television is a heavy motivator within our society. I just want to use it to get back to my nerdy roots.
