Watch This Space

Author: Sheila Seles

Publicly, Middlebury may be known for its rigorous academics and first-rate winter sports, but those of us who live on campus know Middlebury's true character - it's a horrible place for TV. Some luddite rule forbids us from getting cable in our rooms unless we live in senior housing. And if any of you have tried the old rabbit ears you know that TV reception is an impossibility unless you consider reception to be static that occasionally resembles ABC out of Middle-of-Nowhere, New York.

This makes me angry. I don't believe TV makes you stupider. In fact, I'm writing a thesis on TV, so I would argue TV has actually made me smarter. But I'm a senior and I have a television with digital cable in my suite, so it would be a waste of my time to wage a campaign to bring television to the huddled masses of Middlebury. Those of you who love TV will continue to thrive as you always have - setting up VCRs and leaving notes on public televisions reserving them for your favorite shows. TV is a precious commodity - especially on this campus. It's unbelievably difficult to be a loyal devotee of a TV show while living the dorm life at Midd. You need a little guidance. You need to watch this space.

So, what's going on in TV land? It's officially J-term. To me that means one thing - and it's not skiing or drinking heavily, though those are two admirable ways to spend January. It's time for mid-season replacements - that time when television networks roll out a bunch of marginal shows to take the place of all the marginal shows that were recently canceled.

Overall, this crop of shows looks expectedly dismal. NBC has been heavily promoting both Committed (Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m.), a sitcom about a guy trying not to go crazy, and Medium (Mondays at 10p.m.), a show about a woman with a sixth sense. By all accounts, Committed has critics all over the country reaching for the Valium. Medium seems slightly more promising, if only because it co-stars talented Middlebury alum Jake Weber.

More exciting than the typical mid-season duds are cable and reality shows with unorthodox seasons that start in January. The USA Network's critical darling Monk returns on Jan. 21 at 10p.m. Tony Shalhoub's virtuoso performance as an OCD detective makes the show's predictable story lines some of the funniest on TV. For all you Apprentice addicts a new season of The Donald's genius reality show starts on Jan. 20 (NBC 8:30 p.m.). This promises to be the most interesting (or at least gimmicky) season of The Apprentice yet as The Donald pits "Book Smarts" against "Street Smarts." I'll be watching to see if someone other than a cookie-cutter white guy wins a place as Trump's newest errand boy (or girl).

So while the rest of the country uses TiVo as a verb and takes its TV for granted, you can curl up in front of the TV this January (unless that guy from downstairs is watching football) knowing that we Midd kids work hard, play hard, and deserve to watch TV, goddamn it.