It used to be that the best shows were front-loaded toward the start of the week. I fondly recall “Buffy” nights from my college years when my friends would come over on Tuesdays for pizza, along with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Dark Angel,” “Roswell,” “Gilmore Girls,” “24” and “Undeclared.”
OK, not all of those shows were on Tuesdays simultaneously, but we were up to 5 ½ hours of TV at one point (usually all my friends had gone when that fifth hour started, but I didn’t want to get behind, because Wednesday was a fairly busy night, too). This was before the days of Hulu or DVRs, so I commandeered every TV and VCR in my parents’ house for taping purposes.
As recently as last season, Tuesday was still a respectable destination for cool TV, as “Fringe” and “Privileged” were on that night. But now, in 2009, Tuesday’s reign as the Night of Good TV is definitely over. There’s not a single show I watch on Tuesdays.
Instead, the vast majority of the best shows are on Thursdays — no surprise there; it’s always been a good sitcom night — and, here’s the surprise, Fridays. Yeah, there has been many a sci-fi gem dumped on Fridays by Fox through the years, but this season is just ridiculous. My DVR has to figure out a way to record “Law & Order,” “Medium,” “Dollhouse,” “Monk” and “The Clone Wars.” And in the spring, “Friday Night Lights” will return to NBC, and — if they follow last season’s scheduling — it’ll air on Fridays, too.
Combine that with Thursdays — when I task my DVR with “FlashForward,” “Fringe,” “The Office,” “Community” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” — and I have 10 shows crammed into the last two days of the TV week, compared to five in the first four days — which, conventional wisdom says, are prime TV days (the thinking being that people stay inside and watch TV when they have to work the next day, but they’ll go out on the weekends to see a movie or band).
Every time I come home on Tuesday nights (actually, the wee hours of Wednesday) to a DVR that only has “Chelsea Lately” on it, I feel like it must’ve failed to record something. But no, the Tuesday schedule really is that much of a wasteland.
I’d like to hear about which nights are the busiest for your DVRs, to see if I’m alone in this weird phenomenon of my TV viewing being pushed to the end of the week. I almost feel like fans of good TV are being segregated to the end of the week so reality shows (“Dancing with the Stars,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” “The Biggest Loser”) and blockbuster franchises (“NCIS” and its spinoff, “90210” and its spinoff) can take over Tuesday, that once-hallowed night of TV.
Or is it all just a bizarre, random trend that came about by accident?
Comments
I watched Community and thought it was terrible. I wanna like Parks and Recreation and while the debut this season was better than any episode last
season I’m still not sold. Still would like to see Will Arnett on it or on any show for that matter.Watched Modern Family last night and enjoyed it.
Ed O’neill is usually good.# Posted By matt | 9/24/09 6:41 PM
I agree that the first week of “Community” was terrible and that the first “Modern Family” was excellent. I’m much more interested in college humor than family humor, so I want to like “Community” more. But if episode two is also bad, I’ll have to write it off. I’ve never watched “Parks and Recreation.”# Posted By John Hansen | 9/24/09 6:57 PM
I didnt watch this weeks Community. Was it better?
I did watch Parks and Recreation and while it wasnt
as good as last weeks it was still better than every
episode last season. That Aziz guy thats on it and is
in other stuff like Funny People is comedy gold. So
far I’ve liked both episodes of the Office. This weeks
was really cringe-worthy with the Michael/Jim angle# Posted By Matt | 9/25/09 11:06 PM
No, the second “Community” was still pretty boring. I think I am kind of over “The Office.” I don’t even cringe as much anymore, because I am so accustomed to Michael’s behavior. I feel like I’ve seen it all before on previous episodes. It had some momentum with the Michael-Holly romance, but for some reason they went away from that. I know I’m the only person on the planet who thinks this, but I think the show would be better if Michael actually became a better, less selfish person.# Posted By John Hansen | 9/28/09 2:41 AM