Life these days is so busy (with work) that I often complain about the fact that I never get a chance to watch TV any more.

In my youth I loved a bit of telly, but once computers arrived they sort of took over, and then they completely became my life. But in recent times, the quality of TV, especially US drama, has hit impressive highs. As a result, I wish I could spend more time watching TV. But usually I miss things on TV, so instead I ask for DVDs, since they make good birthday presents.

That is the theory. Instead, there are DVDs here in my room that haven’t even made it out of the shrink wrap, despite being on birthday and Christmas request lists for the last several years.

The fact that it took me three years to watch The West Wing from start to finish doesn’t bode well. I have a rule: never watch episodes of anything back-to-back. That way you get to stretch it out for longer. I did break that rule with Prison Break series 1, but that was worth it!

But, sadly, my life will not actually include time to watch all of these things I want to watch if I can only squeeze in a DVD episode once every three or four days. Being realistic, I need to be watching something every day, or I will never watch:

• the rest of Prison Break (currently reached episode 7, series 4, and have been there for about two months)
• Seinfeld, complete
• recent Star Trek films
• The Thick of It
• Breaking Bad
• Arrested Development
• Curb Your Enthusiam
• The Office (US)
• Extras
• House
• 24
• Homeland
• Boston Legal
• Red Dwarf (in its entirety)
• Weeds
• anything by Derren Brown
• Family Guy
• last three Harry Potter Films
• Malcolm in the Middle
• The Wire

I could go on, but I think that’s more than enough.

You will note that I am quite keen on US drama. I don’t know why that is, but no one does drama like the US. Yes there are many misses, but there is so much stuff being made over there that there are bound to be many classics too. UK drama is sometimes very hard-hitting, sometimes gritty, but usually only made in mini-series, therefore it doesn’t seem to have much time to really get you hooked on great characters and fantastic series narrative arcs.

The only things we seem to do well here in the UK are police dramas, which I don’t particularly find interesting, and period drama, ditto. Sitcoms, we are absolute rubbish at (it’s all been done before).

I used to love sitcoms, but I think as my life has got less joyous, my requirement to keep smiling has disappeared. Malcolm in the Middle might just be my favourite sitcom of all time. Well, at least the first few seasons were. I didn’t see much of the rest, but maybe I will by 2040 (at current watching rates), since they are finally coming out on DVD!

And, of course, new stuff is coming out all the time, so my list is added to at a quicker rate than I can watch them.

Bizarrely, I make more time in my life for shows like X Factor. I still don’t really know why. I should hate everything about corporate supremo X Factor. But something about the show, and my love of all things music, and seeing complete unknowns being given a chance, keeps me interested.

Talking of which, another several hours of my life is about to disappear tonight. Great.