Picture Window on the World

There was a time when I used to make a schedule for weekly TV viewing. Don’t get me wrong; while I enjoy TV, I don’t really plan my life around it. If we have places to go and things to do, we go and do. But there are always certain shows I look forward to more than others.

Now it seems like the more channels we get, the less there is to watch. I know that’s not profound or original (Springsteen, among others, said it back in 1992), but don’t forget why it’s a cliché to begin with – because it’s largely true. At this point, in the average week, there are approximately six shows we make an effort to watch: Heroes, Lost, Top Chef (or Project Runway, whichever’s current), Grey’s Anatomy, ER, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Several of those are more “mine” than “ours”, although she at least tolerates them; and some seem more like remote-control muscle memory than a conscious choice (ER in particular has kind of turned into the classic movie zombie that keeps walking around, never realizing it died some time ago).

The last one, however, is definitely my wife's. I enjoy it OK, or at the minimum it only bothers me when Ty's screaming (there are 16,400 results for "ty pennington scream" on Google), but she gets a "fix" from it: a little burst of heartwarm. Still, it's always pretty interesting at the end when they show the results, especially for an inveterate HGTV watcher. What's always amazed me in those tours was all the flat-panel TVs scattered throughout the house... just always seemed so high-tech and extravagant to me. Then our non-flat TV died.

Actually, it died quite a while back and we've been making do with another old (and smaller) set. Strangely enough, however, as I (we) get older, that smaller set wasn't getting any easier to see, so at length I faced the fact that we were going to have to begin the search.

Our last major TV search was about 11 years ago, and in that instance I really dug deep: we had friends who were getting a new TV, and he was Doing Research, so I waited for him to give me his results and I bought that TV. And it did last about 10 years...

This time around what turned the corner for me was the Annual Magazine Subscription Scam, out of which we decided to get Consumer Reports. And almost instantly they came out with their most current TV ratings. I got a bit of a shock when I realized that a flat-panel TV is no longer something out of one of those HGTV shows where somebody spends a million on their house -- it's almost the only kind of TV there is any more. I felt a little like I went to buy a new car and all they had at the dealer was hovercrafts.

I was going to claim that the CR ratings were all I needed to pull the trigger -- but since I rarely get anyone reading this who doesn't already know me well, I don't think I'd get away with that little white lie. Of course I dithered around, went from store to store, couldn't even decide on the size... but then in the end, I just went for the one they'd designated their Best Buy (although, of course, as soon as I bought it, they came out with ANOTHER set of ratings in which my set was still "recommended" but no longer Best).

So now in my den -- maybe 10'x12' -- I have a 40-inch flat panel LCD TV. And yes, it's a trifle overwhelming at 7 or 8 feet away... but believe me, I am getting used to it. I can tell you that this week when I watched Lost, I gasped for a reason that had nothing to do with the mysteries of time travel, or Ben's pure creepy evilness, or even Jack's beard. But the sight of the

Mysterious Island (OK, Hawaii) in wide-screen, hi-def, big as life, was quite literally breathtaking.

So at least for 6 hours a week (well, 5 actually -- Bravo doesn't broadcast in HD yet, at least on our cable) we'll get to watch our favorites in rather vivid fashion. The rest of the time... I may just leave the set on anyway. A picture like this could make Knight Rider and According to Jim worth watching.

On second thought, I'm really regretting the demise of the test pattern.