There are worse things to wake up next to than your remote control.

Over the last few years, I've been dependent on my friends in order to catch TV episodes I missed. Thanks to the busy schedules of my wonderful Amazing Race viewing group (Vijay, Dave, Anne, and, until recently, Ryan Smith), I've embraced the concept of watching an entire series purely on Tivo or DVR. Last year, I rarely watched Lost or Grey's Anatomy at their regularly scheduled times, preferring to catch them at Josh and Adam's at a more convenient moment (for instance, after the first day of Bar/Bri). I was intending to switch over to DVR myself, but I never got around to it between finals and studying for the bar. Then, when my sublessee fell through right before I left town, I decided that I'd save some money by canceling my cable and starting over when I returned. Now, only 3 weeks into having my very own Digital Video Recorder, I feel like a changed man.

Except for Lost, Grey's, and The Amazing Race, I found it really hard to watch TV on a regular basis. Even though I had a VCR, I always forgot to set a tape before I left my apartment in the morning. DVR has changed my world. All I have to do now is set a season-long recording and I have access to all my favorite shows at the touch of a button. With this new power, I dove into the Fall television season with a dedication heretofore impossible. Now that the first new show of the Fall has, well, fallen -- Smith starring Ray Liotta -- I thought it was time to sound off on the new crop of potential obsessions. But there were so many to choose from . . . .

So I DVR-ed them all. Well not all, just the serial dramas that seemed remotely promising. I can't get into sitcoms and reality shows (except the Race) and one-off episodic dramas -- like the 14 Law & Orders and 73 CSIs -- don't really hold my interest, so I was hoping to find another Lost or Grey's to get jazzed about. I decided to give the following shows a try: Ugly Betty, 6 Degrees, Heroes, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Nine, and Kidnapped. I figured that somewhere in there I'd find something worth watching.

It took me about 3 minutes to fall in love with Ugly Betty. Based on a Colombian telenovela -- NOT The Devil Wears Prada as many believe -- the show follows a gal who gets a job at a fashion magazine purely on her looks. The twist is that the Editor-in-Chief's dad runs the publishing company and hired the titular character because she's so unattractive that she wouldn't be a temptation for his playboy son. One of the opening scenes of the pilot episode -- airing in the family-friendly 8pm hour -- featured dad walking in on his son leaning back at his desk with his eyes closed. Moments later viewers discovered that his assistant was under his desk "taking dictation." That's the show's joke, not mine. And it's pretty funny, in my opinion. But while Betty does have an on-going plot about the machinations of Vanessa Williams's Wilhelmina who was passed over for the job in favor of the aforementioned fellatio-receiving publishing scion, it isn't exactly a serialized drama. So, while it's definitely a show that I'm going to keep watching, I was still yearning for something with plotlines and cliffhangers that would drive me nuts with anticipation each week.

6 Degrees seemed perfect. It was on right after Grey's (and anyone with Tivo and DVR knows how lifesaving it can be to record the show right after yours on a regular basis) and was created by J.J. Abrams, creator of Lost. On top of that, it had dreamy Jay Hernandez in a lead role. What could go wrong? Well, I watched the first the episode for about 30 minutes before I got so effing bored that I wanted to cry. It's about these six randoms who all somehow meet up in the first episode. That's the gimmick: they don't know each other and then they do. But by having them all know each other by the end of the first episode, the gimmick was sort of DOA. They tried to lure the viewer in with some mystery about one of the characters who has a weird box that she's guarding . . . yeah, I didn't care either.

I was a bit skeptical about Heroes because the plot sounded entirely too much like X-Men. Normal people discover superpowers due to some evolutionary/mutation-type phenomena, drama ensues. Meh? Still, I watched the first episode and was hooked almost immediately. While the dialogue isn't fantastic (see Studio 60 below), the show is intensely plotted -- very little annoying lag time a la Lost -- and features some great actors playing intriguing characters. I've been waiting for Ali Larter to do something interesting ever since I saw her in Final Destination, I LOVE that Weiss (from Alias) is back on TV, and Sendhil Ramamurthy could give Jay Hernandez a run for his money (plus he's a Jumbo!). Three episodes in, I'm completely obsessed with the show and so excited to see how the heroes eventually come together to stop the nuclear annihilation of New York City (timely plot, too). (Take note 6 Degrees, most of the heroes didn't know each other by the end of the first episode.)

If I was a bit skeptical about Heroes, I was extremely skeptical of Studio 60. It was created by Aaron Sorkin and while I liked The West Wing (at least at the beginning) I never really LOVED it. Also, I worry when sitcom stars try to do drama. So I held off for weeks, recording episodes but never actually watching them, until I finally broke down one afternoon and pressed play. I remember that while stumping for the show, Bradley Whitford said something about how he had better lines than Meryl Streep and that's why he was committing to another TV show so soon after West Wing. Darn tootin'. This is, in my humble opinion, the best written show on TV at the moment. Even if you don't find yourself particularly fascinated by what goes on backstage at a SNL-type show (which I do), you can't help but appreciate some of the best dialogue anywhere. Aaron Sorkin is ok by me.

And since I'd found THREE shows that I wanted to watch, I don't know that I have any room in my life for another show. I didn't even give Kidnapped a shot at all -- it was similarly backlogged on my DVR and has since been deleted. I'm hanging onto The Nine just in case I get bored of something or Lost does something unforgivably stupid like kill off Sun or Sayid. I didn't want this many new shows, but there's too much good television out there and I'm just not that busy these days. DVR is my friend, boss, and lover. The whole point of DVR is that it doesn't mind when I take a day off. And it definitely won't get whiny if I ignore it for a few days.

You, too, can live the dream. Call your cable provider today.