An ode to the best shows ever

Some of you already know this, but when I was a kid I watched way too much TV so my parents forbid me from watching it. I was allowed to watch the news and Twin Peaks. I'm not kidding. Fraggle Rock was forbidden but a show about a man who boffed his own daughter was completely okay.

I got pretty used to not having a TV. When I went to college I didn't have one in the dorm my first or second year, and man was it good for my grades. Then when I moved into my first apartment I finally bought this 1997 cabinet television a friend was getting rid of. It weighs 800 pounds and sits on the floor and I still have it. It cost me $35.

One night I was flipping channels and I came across this intriguing little image. It was a little gray puppet wandering all over a space ship. It was "Exodus from Genesis," the third episode of Farscape, and I was hooked.

Farscape was true genius. An American astronaut gets shot into space by accident and ends up on a space ship full of escaped alien prisoners
who then become the subject of a universe-wide manhunt. Sometimes the show went way out there, but even though it was full of crazy puppets it still always had real emotional content. I cried, I laughed, I loved those characters.

Then one day I was flipping channels and I saw this redheaded chick give a pair of pez dispensers to some little werewolf dude. It was season three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I was hooked. I loved that show. Every episode left me with a smile or a tear or a gaping open mouth. It always elicited an emotion because I cared about the characters.

On both shows people changed drastically from who they were when the story started. People died, people were flawed.

On Farscape they were always making life worse for people when they came around. Not on purpose of course, but it seems every decision John made on that show resulted in multiple deaths. It was a hell of a responsibility to take on. And Buffy was responsible for protecting the world from evil. So I guess that's the key to a good show for me - a flawed individual with enormous responsibility surrounded by people who grow and change under extreme circumstances.

They inspired me to watch more television and still today I regularly pop in my DVDs and run marathons of both shows. Sometimes I'll remember a line or a moment I want to remember so I'll watch an episode, and once I watch one I have a strong desire to watch the next one so I just keep on going until I get to the end.

These are the two shows that inspire me the most.

When I'm done with Pushing Daisies I might go back to my feature idea, but if I'm not ready for that yet I'll start in on my pilot. It's in the space bounty hunter genre. And it will definitely have a flawed hero with lots of responsibility surrounded by friends and enemies who change and grow over time. Because that's what I like.