Last night the final season of The Shield began on F/X, and I felt like I should say something about it. Well, not the particular episode last night really, but just about the show in general, because The Shield is really the show that genuinely got me interested in watching television. Of course I'd watched TV before The Shield, but prior to The Shield I hadn't actually been a fan of any TV show since I was maybe 10 years old (give or take) and liked watching Knight Rider. Growing up my parents were very opposed to my sisters and I watching any TV at all, and the only times we were really allowed to do so was Friday nights, Saturday mornings (before they woke up), Saturday nights, and then for maybe an hour or so on Sunday nights. Because of that, even back then it wasn't like I had a bunch of shows I watched, and instead I just ended up watching whatever was on during those times (which was basically Knight Rider on Fridays, some cartoons Saturday morning, some kind of movie on Saturday night, usually on Elvira or something, and then some kind of family programming on Sunday night).
When I was in high school my parents relaxed a bit on when they'd let us watch TV, but by that point I was really more interested in hanging out with my friends than with sitting home and watching TV, so I really didn't do much of it. I did watch movies in HS, but never really latched on to any TV shows (my sisters were way into 90210 though). In college there weren't many TVs around, so I never had any real regular shows I would watch there either, mainly just a lot of Simpsons re-runs here and there whenever they were on. In college I definitely was just hanging out with friends during most of my spare time. Then after college I discovered the internet, and spent my spare time usually surfing the web, watching movies on TV or watching the Lakers (which I greatly missed doing in college).
Eventually I came to adopt a fairly adversarial attitude towards television shows as an artistic medium, thinking that no idea is that interesting that it needs to be explored for some 20 hours per season for 5-10 years or whatever; especially not when there were so many great movies out there that could deliver the goods in around two hours. I became frustrated when people would talk about whatever shows they were into, and detested the idea of scheduling my time around some show on TV and couldn't understand how people could do this. I became even more annoyed with TV when Reality TV first started to become popular, as I couldn't fathom how people I respected could sink to such a lowest common denominator level of entertainment, even while they were aware that they were doing so (I still feel this way, btw). So I never watched any shows, and even flatly refused to give anything a chance.
Well eventually through my job I was forced to have to view a couple episodes of various TV shows here and there, and they almost always confirmed the contempt I had (Joss Whedon's crap, the X-Files and Star Trek being the most frequent shows I had to watch which reinforced my dislike for TV). However, eventually I had to watch a couple episodes of The Shield and The Wire, and I actually was impressed. These were episodes I had to watch that were right smack in the middle of some episode so I didn't really know what all was going on, especially with The Wire (which is an extremely complex show, and is virtually impossible to just pick up in the middle like that); but even without having seen these shows right from the first episodes I could tell that these were both good shows.
The Shield definitely was much easier to pick up in the middle of a season like that due to it still taking somewhat of an episodic approach that The Wire really does not; so eventually when I got tired of just getting movie after movie on Netflix, I decided to give Season 1, Disc 1 of The Shield a look. The result of that was that I just whipped through that show, watching the first 3 seasons' worth (all that was on DVD at the time) in a little over two weeks. I was really blown away by the quality of everything on the show, especially the writing and the acting, and I just gobbled it up. By the time I finished the 3rd season on DVD, the 4th season had already aired, but we had yet to do the discs, so I was stuck in total frustration of wanting to see what happened next but being unable to. When Season 4 finally came to the office, I volunteered to do the whole season alone just to make sure I got to work on it, and I ended up being paid to watch every episode in order (which of course was awesome). A few months after that the Fifth Season aired, and for the first time since I was a kid I had a show that I actually tuned in for each and every week (aided by Tivo at this point).
After starting with The Shield on Netflix, I got The Wire and found myself almost as impressed at first (and ultimately moreso as that show went on - The Wire is hands down the best show I've ever seen). After The Wire I got into a couple other shows: Deadwood, Entourage and Battlestar Galactica. In that time Deadwood has since been canceled, The Wire finished airing all the episodes the creators wanted to make, and Battlestar Galactica has entered into its incredibly long, drawn-out last season. And now The Shield has begun its last season as well, with it being the choice of the creators to end it now rather than waiting till it became crappy or the ratings fell causing the network to pull the plug on it. Watching the first episode of Season 7 last night was great, it was definitely like seeing an old friend who I hadn't seen in a long time. I'm so happy it's back on the air and I can't wait to see how they wrap it up, but of course I'm sad that it's almost over. I intend to cherish it while it's still here.