DVR imperfection leads to 'Lost' night
A few years ago, this wouldn't have happened. It would have been unthinkable, too terrible even to imagine. No, a few years ago, I never would have missed the season premiere of Lost.
So imagine my surprise when my boyfriend and I were minding our own business, watching our previously recorded Top Chef two nights ago, when, during a commercial break we were barreling through in fast forward, I happened to catch the words "Lost returns tonight." Stop. Rewind. What?
(Credit:
ABC)
We backed up to the beginning of the ad, and sure enough, Bravo HD was proclaiming that Lost had returned a few hours before!
Had we set it to record? No. Had we even known it was coming back this week? No! We don't watch ads anymore. Ever. But without them, we are apparently living in a dark age so backwards it's as though TV Guide hasn't been invented yet. Now my grandpa is more informed than I am about television culture.
If we didn't have a DVR, we surely would have known, because I bet Lost ads have dominated the airwaves for the past few months. Lost isn't a show to announce itself softly: it usually has weeks of setup, marathons of previous seasons, call-in shows, etc. If we didn't have the ability to fast forward through that dreck, we would have known to be home, in front of the TV, at 8 p.m. on Wednesday. Sure, we would also have been brain-washed by a desire for a Snuggie and Wendy's new chicken sandwich, but information comes at a cost. As Tina Fey would say, "a doy."
Luckily, ABC anticipated that DVR-addled viewers like us may have missed the premiere, and so it offered the episode for free online, with one condition: you have to watch myriad 30-second spots for Desperate Housewives. Now that is my nightmare. But I'm willing to suffer through it to catch up on my show.
Anyone else find you are missing out on vital programming information by skipping through all the ads?
P.S. Jeez Comcast DVR, TiVo would never have let this happen. Somehow TiVo would have known I cared about Lost, even without my informing it, and it would have made sure to have the show recorded come premiere night. Before I switched to the cheaper Comcast box, TiVo always had helpful little suggestions for me, and despite the fact that it once recorded Dancing with Dogs without any prompting, I usually trusted it. Sigh.
If you love Lost as much as you claim you do, you don't need a commercial to tell you when the show is coming back.
Whiney people can never be pleased. They will always try to think of reasons to complain.
"If it's made by man, then it will fail...."
It's true; there's too much crap on TV to be able to keep up with it all. I've missed 30 Rock three weeks in a row and had to suffer through choppy online video, with interruptions brought to you by Reese's.
east coast misses the moon boots!
Another issue I have with Comcast is that their DVR is awful. I miss my Tivo box. For whatever reason, Comcast in Philadelphia uses boxes with a cable-card, and it does not interface with Tivo.
- by Borgslayer January 26, 2009 6:53 AM PST
- Doesn't your DVR have a "seasson pass" feature? My tivo did, my crap Directv dvr does.
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