Just You Wait 'enry 'iggins-Just You Wait

As many parents of young children understand, it is difficult to really enjoy television that doesn't come from a channel designated "jr" somewhere in the title. For the past few years "favorite" shows of mine included an array of cartoon pirates, princesses, guppies, monsters, puppets, and more. Our DVR held more recordings of Octonauts, Special Agent Oso, and Yo Gabba Gabba! than my episodes of Graham Norton, Doctor Who, Agents of SHIELD, and Once Upon a Time (the only four shows I watched regularly). The biggest issue was that I would forget to watch (or record) a show I was interested in therefore falling so far behind that getting into the show later was sort of pointless. While Netflix and Amazon Prime have helped a little, it isn't the same as when I had something specific to look forward to watching each night of the week. And for a while it was okay because there didn't seem to be anything on that I really wanted to watch.

This fall I already had the DVR set for my two staple BBC shows: Doctor Who and Graham Norton (I wish American "chat" shows worked like they do in Great Britain.) Agents of SHIELD also maintained its place because it just keeps getting better and better. After all, "it's all connected."

However, I had already decided that last season's Once Upon a Time was it for me. The initial premise of the show was really cool. To take classic fairy tales and spin them in a way that made Rumplestilskin Belle's "beast" and Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter a savior of sorts was fantastic! Even discovering that Red Riding Hood was the actual wolf made for exciting television. Then they totally sold out and it became "how many Disney characters can we cram into this show?" The moment they brought Elsa and Ana on screen I knew sharks had been jumped. (I love Frozen but for prime time also to cash in...not cool.)

It turns out that canceling that show was okay because two shows caught my eye: Selfie and Forever.

Selfie is My Fair Lady in television form. I mean, the main character's name is Eliza Dooley, and the guy she asks to help her rebuild her image is named Henry. Yet, I'm totally okay with all of that because it stars Karen Gillian and John Cho, two actors I like. The show will be a nice set of laughs during the week.


The real surprise though is the show Forever. To be completely honest, I was really only vaguely interested in the premise since the main motivating factor to watch was this:

(That would be the absolutely GORGEOUS Ioan Gruffudd. I have seen him in real life, and he IS just as beautiful.)

 But the reason I am going to keep watching is because the show is pretty darn good. It is formulaic in its stock of characters and murder mystery ways; however, the fact that Ioan's character (also a "Henry") is immortal is kind of neat. What really grabs my attention are the flashbacks he has of his life, and the big reveal of who the character "Abe" is at the end of the pilot almost made me cry. Because I have such an amazing bestie, I am caught up and ready to watch from here till the end of the season.


Many people might wonder why I am even limiting myself to how many shows I watch at all. DVR has a lot of space. Well, I still have to compete with Sofia the First and Doc McStuffins for TV time. In the end, I really don't have all the time in the world to catch up on various shows. When I record too many, I quit watching and delete them because it becomes overwhelming. Five shows this season is really pushing it anyway. If any more shows come along that I am dying to watch, they will just have to wait until they run on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

My real fear is that I will curse these new shows, and they will be canceled even before the end of the first season. See, every time I become a fan of a TV show, it ends long before it should. (RIP Pushing Daisies.) Or it starts to go downhill fast (see Once Upon a Time above). For now I will DVR what I can and keep my fingers crossed.