Changing Channels

For the past three years or so, every week night from 6 until 8 p.m., Hubby tuned in to the Hallmark channel showing of Walker, Texas Ranger. How I grew to hate that show! I don't dislike Chuck Norris, I think he makes wholesome family entertainment. He also always made good use of varied ethnic casting of which I approve whole-heartedly. I do dislike Norris' conservative politics but except on the gun-control issue, he doesn't really inject his views into his movies and TV shows. However, ten hours of Walker weekly for three years proved very cloying. After six months, I adjourned to the computer room or read magazines and books and left Hubby alone to watch the TV. He claimed Walker relaxed him -- and I guess he was right, because usually after 15 minutes he'd be sound asleep, unless, of course, I'd think I could sneak in and change the channel on him. Then he pop right up and growl. I learned to just leave Walker on for two hours and peace reigned in the household.

And then disaster struck Hubby. Hallmark phased out Walker. It took about three months of moving the show around, interrupting the weekly night casts, and finally Walker was off the air. Hubby has now switched his napping to the two hours before the nightly news. He watches and sleeps through all the Judge shows on TV, culminating in the aggressively sarcastic and evil Judge Judy. But usually when these shows come on I'm busy around the house, recovering from the school day, or doing graduate studies homework.

This has left a void in our TV viewing. After the nightly news we didn't have anything we actually wanted to watch. Hubby has switched his 6 - 8 p.m. activities to playing computer games, leaving me in charge of the remote control. And this is when I discovered that USA was showing marathon rounds of NCIS, a show I had never watched during the prime season run.

When I was 18 and in my senior year in high school I fell passionately and head-over-heels in love with David McCallum who played Illya Kuryakin on Man from U.N.C.L.E. I watched every episode for the next two years and then somehow real life took over, the show went on and I moved on. I look back now and wonder at how immature I was at the time -- and what the heck was I thinking, lusting after such a pale, small, delicate man?

Sometime in the 1980's I saw a couple of movies with Mark Harmon in them. When People magazine selected him as sexiest man alive I wondered how that could be . . . but People has their own standards and I'm too old to get very concerned about them.

In discovering the reruns of NCIS, I found a show that usually has a decent plot, is not all that bloody, has recreated good characterizations for its cast, and has David McCallum, much older (78 I think -- he MUST have had a lot of work done to look this good at 78!) and suddenly very attractive to me again. Even Mark Harmon look darned good. I think this might be a need to relive my youth just a bit on the McCallum thing, but the show is quite diverting.

So I've recorded hours and hours of it -- almost all my TV watching is now done by DVR because I can no longer stomach commercial interruptions -- and I'm slowly moving my way though all the episodes from 2003 to today. The thing about recording them from USA is that they don't show in sequence so you get an episode from 2004 and then one from 2007 that has new or added cast members. Interestingly, the women change a lot more often on the show than the men.

I still have 30 some hours of shows on my DVR player after the USA Memorial Day NCIS marathon. I think I've eliminated all the ones that I've seen already. Mixed in with NCIS are a few other good TV shows like Numbers, but basically most of my stored watching hours are of NCIS.

Because I've watched so many hours on USA, I'm now also tuning into Burn Notice and Royal Pains. And yes, I've discovered that USA does show Walker on Thursday nights -- and I've offered to record it for Hubby. Seems he's moved on from his addiction while I'm just starting one of my own.