My DVR is smoking!

I have never watched sooo many TV shows in my entire life. I’ve recorded over 30 different 1 hour dramas and ½ hour sitcoms that I’ve never watched before. (I’m talking E-Ring, Criminal Minds, Commander In Chief, Threshold, Ghost Whisperer, Night Stalker, Living with Fran, Cuts, How I Met Your Mother, Barbershop, etc….the list is entirely too long.) Why you might ask? No, it’s not because I don’t have a life or that I’m a TV junkie now….believe it or not, it’s research.

The point here is that if I want to work on TV it only makes sense that I watch the TV shows that I could potentially be on. How could a person want to work on TV and not watch TV? Sometimes you just have to get a feel for the show, the characters, storyline, tempo, etc.

Some of you may/may not know that there are also some VERY significant differences between 1 hour dramas and ½ sitcoms. Among those differences are things like pacing (when you factor in time for commercials, dialog for a ½ sitcom is MUCH faster than that of a 1 hour drama), Multiple camera formats (like a traditional sit-com such as Eve, Joey, Love Inc., etc) and single camera formats (Bernie Mac, Everybody Hates Chris, Scrubs, etc.) and so on.

With all this research, there’s good and bad news. The bad news is that when I add ALL these shows to my regular favorites (Pardon the Interruption (sports), Hardball w/ Chris Matthews (politics), Letterman (late night), & Inside the Actor’s Studio (acting) I find myself staying up until 3 in the morning on a nightly basis.

The good news is that I’ve been introduced to so many shows that I never would have watched otherwise. Some of these shows I actually enjoy! Some I’m may not be crazy about but I don’t have to watch them every week….just enough to get a feel for the show. The point is, when I finally do get that audition on a Tuesday for a show that airs on Wednesday, I’ll already be prepared.