Repeat Season
by Kat Yares

Another week or two and it will all over for those of us who live in the backwoods and rely on an antenna for television reception. Not only is summer coming, so is repeat season.

Where we live, we get four channels on great days, three on good days and two the rest of the time. A great day for television viewing is rainy and overcast. Good days are mostly cloudy. Any day there is not a cloud in the sky are the days when television reception is at its worst. Those days we receive only PBS and CBS, could this be because they are pushing HiDef and digital TV? I don't know, but whatever it is they are doing, I appreciate it.

Most of the time, we do get NBC; it's ABC that's the real problem. So, repeat season poses a real problem when evening rolls around and there is nothing on expect what we've already seen. Granted, some repeats are still good, Scrubs is one example - no matter how many times I see an episode, I still find myself laughing.

How do we solve this? We watch a lot of tapes and DVDs. We have huge collections of both that we have picked up at flea markets, auctions and pawn shops. Pawnshops are especially fun to shop for DVDs because generally within a week of a movie's release, you can find it there for half the retail price or less.

Or else we read, or surf the net. Anything to give us something new to fill the gray matter of our minds.

We've considered going with a satellite dish for more channels, but after last weeks five day long visit to another city and seeing what is on cable while in the motel room, it only confirmed for us that there is really nothing much worth watching going that route either. Most of the channels were showing, you guessed it, repeats from the networks. So, what's the point? It just seem like a reasonable exchange to pay $40 - $50 dollars a month, when you only allow yourself five to ten hours of television watching a week anyhow.

I will admit, sometimes I miss watching The Simpson's on Fox, and I've heard that they have had several other good shows. The same goes for the WB and for UPN.

Now, I could buy a larger, taller, more powerful antenna, but why? Until, network television comes up with 'seasonless' television programming, I'll read a book during the summer, repeat season. Or, I'll come back and write another blog entry or two.