My zeitgeist lag has been validated!

By this little piece in Slate.

Falling behind isn't a minority position anymore, it's a legitimate first-time viewing strategy. Thanks to TVD (along with newer technologies like DVR and on-demand cable), the first broadcast of a show has lost its old magic—around 60 percent of The Sopranos' DVD audience, for instance, doesn't subscribe to HBO. Most of my friends are still scattered, with little sense of cultural loss, throughout Six Feet's first four seasons.

This fall I re-watched the first two and half seasons of the Sopranos, then watched for the first time the other two and a half seasons, all while nursing on the couch. The (poor in so many ways) joke was that Miss T.'s bedtime routine consisted of watching fat Italian men kill each other.

Then I started in on Six Feet Under. That's been going more slowly, what with work and all; just finished disk 2 of season 4 (that's when David gets the crap beaten out of him for no real reason at all, in case you care). And I can already see that when the library gets the Season 5 disks in, I'll be right where this guy was:

But (to adapt Six Feet's ad copy), everything everyone everywhere ends—at least eventually. After eight months, my Six Feet gap finally closed: Last week, the final season reached its second-wave DVD audience. I took full advantage of the medium shift, tearing through the entire season in three days—15 times faster than its original viewers. I watched with frenzied, immersive, isolation-tank intensity, breaking free only to feed my daughter and my dog and (prompted by the show) to check that my marriage wasn't flaming out into some kind of loveless soul-draining screaming match.

Comments

[nuttylibrarian]

You *must* watch "The Wire." Best show HBO's ever made, best show that's ever been on TV. I rewatched seasons 1 and 2 while on my maternity leave and later found out that two other mom-friends did the same. It's so so so so so amazingly good!

Our baby (16 months now) has learned "no." He said "No thank you" yesterday, so at least he's not using it obnoxiously (yet?).

[k]

i was totally horrified by that abduction episode. every time something bad happened to david, i kept thinking, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

[Weezy]

I absolutely LOVE Six Feet Under-- and have to admit that I am one of those people who also watch it via DVD. (The final season is in Netflix-- still havne't seen the ending) For even higher drama-- try The L Word.