Fall TV Season

We'll keep the advice section pretty light this week and tackle the topic of the new fall television season. I don't watch too many shows overall (cuts into football time), but there are a few that are very DVR worthy. I suggest choosing enough shows to DVR that you can just watch the old ones while the new ones record, that way you can avoid all commercials. Unless Terry Tate, office linebacker, makes a return to the small screen, I'm not interested in your product.

I'll try to avoid the generic suggestions such as The Office and other mainstream hits. You need to make yourself familiar with Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX. You have even more reason to do so now that FX HD is available on Comcast in the Chicagoland area. It is just stupid humor at its finest with some Danny DeVito sprinkled in. It is basically like Cheers on meth.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is back after taking a year off starting on Sept. 20th on HBO. It is worth the two month addition to your cable/sat bill. The creator of Seinfeld is way funnier on pay television especially when you consider yourself an artison of swearing.

You definitely need to be watching Friday Night Lights starting in early winter (unless you have DirecTv and can check it out before NBC gets the rights). I think it is a great watch about small town football and bad high school drama. Speaking of bad high school drama, if you grew up watching 90210 like I did you can catch the new season on the WB-CW-UPN-whatever the hell that channel is. I'm not going to proclaim that good television, but it is pretty funny to think that you used to shape your week around the old 90210. Jennie Garth stuck around and she still looks good (I'm sticking with a no comment on Tori Spelling).

I don't really know of any other hidden gems coming up this year. You can count me in for numerous cable tv efforts like Top Chef: Las Vegas, Diners Drive-ins and Dives, Man vs Food, and a few other nonsense shows. Big Ten and Beyond looks like the only watchable show from the new Big Ten Network football four pack. It's a Friday night breakdown of the upcoming conference games and national implications. Outside of these shows, I try to stick to NFL Network as much as possible. Feel free to post your suggestions for new programming or old shows that we need to be watching.

Ode to Nader

I'm going to give you two must-haves for the fall television season: La-Z-Boy recliner/loveseat/sofa and a stovetop popcorn popper. Not only do the La-Z-Boy products have a thick layer of cushioning, but they have the best reclining mechanisms. They always have sales going and are already very price competitive unless you're shopping at flea markets. You can pair that up with the standard $20 popcorn popper that goes right over the heat. Throw down some oil, Orville, and salt and you've got the perfect fresh snack for a night of nothing. If you honestly think the microwave stuff is better/easier/faster, just buy one of these and you'll have the real deal done in less than five minutes.