TV That I Don't Hate

News and sports notwithstanding, I can barely remember most of the television that I have seen as an adult.
This is not the fault of my memory, it's TV's fault for being unmemorable.
But there are certain shows...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer- I saw this in re-runs in 2002. I was virtually shut-in at the time, a truly awful surgery had left me without the use of my left arm for several agonizing months- all I could do was wash Oxycontin down with beer and moan...Buffy was on four -four!-times a day on the FX channel...my waking life soon revolved around doctor visits and Buffy re-runs, I even had my physical therapy schedule set so I could be home in time for the 11 o'clock (?) episodes.
It was much funnier than I expected, clever and occasionally brilliant, full of witty references, pop and otherwise and just had a general sense of fun to it . With sexy lesbian witches.

It's weird...how come I didn't get addicted to Oxycontin? I took it for months...grew to hate it amost as much as pain. Anyway...

Northern Exposure- This was TV that didn't insult your intelligence; a literate , well written and produced show about a displaced New Yorker in Alaska. I dunno what genre it would be in...I have been told that it's considered "chick TV" but I liked it a lot because it's the only show I've ever seen that assumed the viewer had at least a passing knowledge of Joseph Campbell,
Fellini and Leon Trotsky. There were entire episodes that required this sort of background, not a typical TV show at all...
I used to watch this show with my only 'sane' adult girlfriend, Kathy II, who looked quite a bit like the Maggie character.
Ah.
I was more like the Feral Child that the Ed character played in one episode.
Before he washed up.

It was in late night re-runs on a local station and I'd go over to her house and we'd get stoned and watch NE...good times. I swear I've seen every episode twice and I'd watch 'em again if they were on, except for the last season or two, which sucked.

It had some surreal moments for sure but not nearly as many as:

Twin Peaks- Unlike Northern Exposure, this show made almost no linear sense to me at all. I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless...it was TV you could watch when you were high - an it wasn't cartoons! Dark, bizarre stuff, David Lynch trying really hard- maybe too much- to do ...??? who knows?
I barely remember the show, really- I do fondly recall the weekly Twin Peaks parties we had though.
Years later at Kathy's house, I saw the Northern Exposure episode that parodies Twin Peaks-I laughed so hard... one of my happiest TV memories, right up there with the Moon Landing. Kathy had never seenTwin Peaks, but she totally turned me onto NE and I get a warm fuzzy just thinking about it...
Ah....

Must stop these nice thoughts...let's talk some scary-ass TV:

Does anyone recall a TV show called Millennium? It was an X-Files sort of project, only much darker- I remember what I thought was the final episode- a horrible flesh-eating virus was destroying the planet and the main character had tried to isolate and protect his family, but it was too late...there was a terrifying apocalyptic collage of global devastation and personal loss at the end- it's etched into my mind by the accompanying soundtrack from Patti Smith's Horses, someone actually mentions this in Wikipedia!

Says on the web there was a third season and the world didn't really end, it was a hallucination...
but that one collage- that was fucking brilliant, even if I really don't want to see it again. Ever.

That's enough about TV.