The television in my house is a hot commodity. Four adults with very different viewing preferences reside here. My mother will watch anything and everything on the SciFi Channel, including but by no means excluded to, Eureka, Dr. Who, Dead Like Me and some show about a man whose parents sold his soul to the devil when he was born. Rick enjoys WWF and Burn Notice. I enjoy anything on Showtime (Weeds and Dexter are probably my favorites), along with Lost and The Office.
My grandmother has always liked what we affectionately call "dead people shows." House, Monk, CSI, CSI: Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Cold Case, NCIS, Bones and a myriad of other shows which tend to revolve around an illness or crime and wrap up their story lines within the hour. She despises Lost even though I've explained that the main character is a doctor, just like House, there are mysteries to be solved and a few people even manage to die. She's not buying it; she thinks the polar bear is ridiculous, and that a bunch of pretty people on an island should really "get a grip". She also doesn't find comedies funny. (Don't get me wrong, Grandma actually has a fabulous sense of humor; she just finds sit-coms inane.)
But while I was away on a recent trip to New York (yay!), as you may know, Senator John McCain named little-known Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. For some reason this has opened up a whole new world of television. She watches Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show with me. There are few objections when I watch the other news programs. Somehow the whole X chromosome ploy by McCain didn't win over my Grandma - a woman who once told me that Senator Barack Obama was smarmy, and that she didn't understand how people my age could be so enthusiastic about him. And tonight, after a lovely trip to CostCo for a three pound package of strawberries, I turned on The Daily Show, and Grandma admitted that "Jon Stewart is so cute." Obviously, this country is on the right track.
