Tivo Time Machine Pt. 1

Soon after I started swing dancing, about two years ago, I started having some problems with my living room television set up. Because of the system I had set up, I was able to watch DVDs but not television through my Tivo. A fairly easy solution, get the malfunctioning piece of equipment (my switch/amp) repaired. Well, I didn't have as much time to watch television, so I kept putting it off. A month or so ago.

Today I picked up the repaired unit and brought it back home to test out. And came face to face with the fact that my expanded Tivo has been recording television for me to watch for two years. With all the preferences I set two years ago.

First pass, I went through and deleted the things I knew I didn't need any more. I've watched all of The Wire, so I trashed the two seasons I had recorded. I've watched all the BBC episodes of Kitchen Nightmares (and don't particularly like the F word).

What does that leave me? Well, I'd been building up a back-log of television long before two years ago. Long before. And many of the wish lists and season passes were set to record all new episodes without deleting. It's a miracle that there were actually new television shows still being recorded. Not everything was set to stay indefinitely. The oldest recorded show is from August 2002 (A Cook's Tour: Stuffed Like a Pig; Portugal to France). There are quite a few singleton episodes of television that wasn't out on DVD yet. Season 5, Episode 14 of Angel, "Smile Time," which is has a hilarious demon-possessed Sesame Street muppet plot.  Season 3, Episode 19 of Mad About You, "Two Tickets to Paradise".  Season 5, Episode 10 of Mad About You, "Chicken Man".  The show wasn't my favorite, but these episodes... these fucking episodes... they're flat out brilliant.  There are some episodes of The Daily Show I've saved because of specific segments.  Back in the day, they weren't available online.  Now they are, and I'll note them in a separate post.  Some canceled shows (Love Monkey, Line of Fire).  Some one-offs like a re-broadcast of the Pilot episode of "Cop Rock."  A Los Angeles Kings anniversary special.  UFC 44.  "The Human Behavior Experiments."  An episode of a Fine Living Network show called "Dinner Date."  Not sure what the heck that's about.  Oh, people take a cooking class and speed date at the same time.  Or something like that.  Erased.  An IFC Short Film Showcase featuring the Ocean's Eleven spoof, "Seven's Eleven."

But the bulk of the storage is season passes or wish lists to my favorite shows circa 2006-2007.  "A Cook's Tour" and "Good Eats" from The Food Network.  "Scrubs" from NBC.   Oh man, it moved and I doubt I have the current season.  Bummer.  "America's Test Kitchen" from PBS.  "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations," from The Travel Channel.  "How I Met Your Mother," on CBS.  "This American Life" on Showtime.

And that's it.  Those shows represent over 200 hours of programming on my Tivo.  I have to admit, it feels weird to watch television in my living room.