I think I've gone all Fonzie in Hawaii

It all started a handful of Tuesdays ago. I can't remember specifically whether it was at the moment that Richard Gilmore collapsed in his class in front of Rory or if it was the next week when we worried throughout the whole episode whether he would actually die. But one thing is certain; they had me. I was, for the first time in a long time, totally engrossed in an episode of the Gilmore Girls. Christopher was practically nowhere to be found and for a brief moment, the Bizarro universe that the show had become with its wretch-inducing saccharine nuclear family bullshit faded into the background. Since then, Christopher has gone and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Thus far, nothing. I, certainly, haven't been as riveted as I was when Richard's life was on the line and Emily was in full-on Emily form, but I haven't had the urge to punh myself in the face several times an episode.

This concerns me.

Could it be that all it took to hook me back into a Stars Hollow bender was for the writers to get rid of Christopher and throw in a few episodes with Miss Patty and Babette and Mrs. Kim and I would fall for this bastard Rosenthal's 2.0 vision of the show?

I convince myself that I am simply in a state of shock from how bad the episodes from earlier in the season were. Nothing could remain that bad without either Gallagher or Carrot Top attached. It had to improve and that improvement has come as such a pleasant surprise that I have been fooled into thinking that the show is almost back to form (Season 6 form, not Season 2 or 3 form). I convince myself of all this and I assure myself that everyone has their guilty pleasures and mine is that I want to see this "story" played out until the end.

But, then, just as I am reassuring myself, Veronica Mars comes on. Veronica Mars, the show to which I am a latecomer. Veronica Mars, the show which I have spent hours trying to convince my friends that if they just watched it, they would see just how great it is. And I realize that I can't remember what's going on. I realize that I barely care what's going on. Keith's the sherriff now? All of the mysteries have been neatly solved. Logan and Veronica are on again/off again. Blah blah blah.

Without a long arc mystery with the emotional resonance of Lily Kane's murder or the bus crash, the minutiae of life in Neptune and its "little" mysteries leave me cold.

I understand that those bastars at CW are putting enormous pressure on Rob Thomas and his crew of writers to get ratings up. They don't want to scare anyone away with anything that doesnt' make sense in one sitting. But, let's face it: basically everyone who thinks or writes about these things is sure that this is the last season for Veronica and the gang, so why not make it a good last season? Why cave so easily to your network masters and alter the format of the show, if they're going to pull the plug anyway?

It makes me suspect that he's a born-whore and it makes me suspect that maybe I, and not all the doubters, have been the one who has been wrong all along.

Have I "jumped the shark"? I start to think about the ways that I spend my time lately and I can count two instances in which I watched Las Vegas because Gina from 90210 is on it. I can think about all of the times that I've tuned into the CW on Tuesdays just hoping that Gilmore Girls would be a rerun so I could watch American Idol. Then, I think about all of my Wednesdays spend actually watching American Idol and all of the time afterwards that I spend staring at myself in the mirror afterwards thinking about which song that I would sing in my audition and how Simon would respond.

I'm overcome by self-doubt and wishy-washiness. I find myself telling a friend who is a comic book nerd that he should really be watching Heroes because it's really and in the next breath equivocating that its good for TV. Because I have no idea. TV is pretty much my only reference point. I used to be TV guy who was well-versed in "smart people thing". I could talk about books and music and movies and philosophy. Now, the closest I get to "smart people things" is my daily does of Jeopardy at 7. I've lost my frame of reference and I can't tell you why I like what I like. I've lost my edge. I mean Jesus Christ I just admitted to watching Jeopardy (which I can't even spell)!

But it only lasts for so long because in five minutes American Idol starts and tomorrow Grey's Anatomy can follow up that train wreck of a trilogy of episodes and soon enough that warm blurry haze will wrap itself around me and make me forget.