New Year's Irresolution

Oh, did I mention I was going on vacation? I could have sworn I had put up a post mentioning that I was going to be gone last week. Apologies to everyone who counted on Tuned In as a refuge from your alcohol-fueled, resentment-filled, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf family holiday get-togethers.

Today Tuned In returns to its regular (but frustrating) schedule of irregular (but still frustrating!) commentary. It's New Year's resolution time, and in the spirit of the holiday, here are a few of my faults as a critic and blogger that I'd like to rectify in the coming year yet almost certainly won't.

Above all, I'd like to make an effort to watch more TV like an ordinary person. Like a lot of critics, I tend to be pretty prime-time-focused: there's a lot to keep on top of, and my daytime is filled with writing for the print magazine, catching up on TiVoed shows, and filling this blog with content for you insatiable ingrates. As a result, I miss a lot of daytime TV, which is probably inexcusable. I'll try to remedy that, so if any Time editors happen to notice Passions on my TV as they walk by my office, trust me, I'm working. 

Likewise, because I use TiVo to keep my media diet manageably bite-sized, I don't see nearly as many commercials as the average viewer. Considering that commercials are the genre of programming that makes most of the rest of TV possible, they're arguably more influential than the shows they appear in. I'll try to work more coverage of them in here as well.

More bad daytime TV and more commercials: lofty goals, I know, but someone has to strive for them.