Matt’s Unnamed TV Blog

Posted on January 4, 2011 by TV Statistician

I spent about half an hour trying to think of a name for this blog. I first started with The Simpsons, the show that started this growing fascination with television for me. My senior quote in high school was “Any key? Where’s the ‘any’ key?” That didn’t seem to fit. I then thought of Lost, the show that really made me a believer in television as a medium for some of the most creative and engrossing storytelling. Nothing there really seemed title-worthy to me, at least not right away.

So I’m starting this blog without a title. I may come upon something that fits, but for now … “Matt’s Unnamed TV Blog” it is.

As mentioned above, viewing TV became more than just a pastime for me with The Simpsons. I had been a fan of the show through my middle school and high school years, watching the reruns every weeknight and looking forward to new episodes each Sunday. I’d have conversations with friends in high school that consisted almost entirely in quotes from the show. But this new way of watching TV started didn’t start until I received the first season of the show on DVD as a gift.

I shot through the discs in the first season, then again with the audio commentaries. When the second season came out, I did the same. Eventually I got to a point where I started having that internal conversation of what my favorite episodes were, what my favorite jokes were, and how each season compared to each other.

Measuring and analyzing have always been a big part of my hobbies. As a baseball fan, keeping score and calculating statistics was an interest of mine pretty early. I sat on the floor in my bedroom simulating fictional games and kept score of them, only to take the score sheets and enter the stats into a spreadsheet on the computer. The act of measuring and then seeing all of that data together and comparing it … something about that appealed to me.

I now am able to get my fix with sports stats through my job, but some of the appeal of sports has gone away the longer I’ve been away from actually competing on the field. It probably also has something to do with it becoming a job for me. I used to be a fan of all sports. Now it’s really just down to one: baseball. I still enjoy other sports – I still get goose bumps during especially exciting plays or comebacks when covering a game for work – but I’m finding myself watching sports for leisure less and less over the years.

What am I going to instead? TV shows. Now instead of doing the math for earned run average or on-base percentage, I’m rating single episodes of TV shows and inputting them into my ever-growing spreadsheet of ratings.

In my system episodes are rated on a scale of 1-10. I probably grade too high. I end up with too many 9s and 10s, but I try to stay consistent and judge the episodes on the same scale. Rather than changing my criteria and having to go back and re-grade old episodes, I stick to the same scale.

The Simpsons – Season 1

  1. Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire-10
  2. Bart the Genius-8
  3. Homer’s Oddyssey-7
  4. There’s No Disgrace Like Home-7
  5. Bart the General-9
  6. Moaning Lisa-10
  7. Call of the Simpsons-9
  8. The Telltale Head-6
  9. Life on the Fast Lane-10
  10. Homer’s Night Out-7
  11. The Crepes of Wrath-6
  12. Krusty Gets Busted-10
  13. Some Enchanted Evening-9

TOTAL: 8.31

There was a brief time when I graded on a 1-5 scale. I found that that wasn’t quite broad enough for my internal grading. Season 1 of Scrubs remains on the spreadsheet as a relic of that system.

I changed the 3s to 5.5, the 4s to 7.5 and the 5s to 9.5. Why half points? I didn’t want to automatically give the episodes I rated a 5 a 10 in the new system, because that was reserved for the especially memorable ones. But 9 also seemed too low, because there probably were some 10s in there. Eventually my goal is to go back and re-watch that season and grade on 1-10, but for now it still has the funky half points.

Scrubs – Season 1

  1. My First Day (Pilot)-7.5
  2. My Mentor-9.5
  3. My Best Friend’s Mistake-7.5
  4. My Old Lady-9.5
  5. My Two Dads-9.5
  6. My Bad-9.5
  7. My Super Ego-5.5
  8. My Fifteen Minutes-7.5
  9. My Day Off-5.5
  10. My Nickname-7.5
  11. My Own Personal Jesus-7.5
  12. My Blind Date-9.5
  13. My Balancing Act-7.5
  14. My Drug Buddy-7.5
  15. My Bed Banter & Beyond-9.5
  16. My Heavy Meddle-7.5
  17. My Student-7.5
  18. My Tuscaloosa Heart-9.5
  19. My Old Man-9.5
  20. My Way of the Highway-7.5
  21. My Sacrificial Clam-5.5
  22. My Occurance-9.5
  23. My Hero-9.5
  24. My Last Day-9.5

TOTAL: 8.17

Anyway, as you can see above with the Scrubs example, the ratings get added together and then divided by the total amount of episodes.  For Scrubs Season 1, I graded it 8.17.

What’s a good rating for a comedy? Well, the only perfect season I’ve ever graded is Season 1 of The Office (BBC). That show had an advantage with only six episodes per season (or series, as the Brits call them). Season 2 of the same show is also my second highest half hour comedy at 9.83. My highest graded season of comedy outside the short six-episode outlier of The Office? Arrested Development Season 1 at 9.59.

Moving over to dramas, surprisingly the second season of Dollhouse is my highest rated season at 9.92. It was a fun show, indeed, but best season of drama ever? Not sure about that. Dollhouse is on Netflix Instant, and when I introduce it to the wife I may end up reevaluating my ratings.

Here’s a snapshot of my highest rated individual seasons: (as of 1/3/11)

  1. 10.00 – The Office (BBC) – Season 1
  2. 9.92 – Dollhouse – Season 2
  3. 9.88 – Lost – Season 1
  4. 9.83 – Dexter – Season 1
  5. 9.83 – The Office (BBC) – Season 2
  6. 9.81 – Lost – Season 5
  7. 9.75 – Dexter – Season 2
  8. 9.74 – Lost – Season 2
  9. 9.71 – Breaking Bad – Season 1
  10. 9.69 – Lost – Season 4

Obviously a lot of Lost in there, but you can see some of the other favorites.

I don’t only rate individual seasons, I also average those scores and rate shows as a whole. So in six seasons of Lost, the show has an overall rating of 9.70. Each season gets weighted based on how many episodes it had. So the 13-episode fourth season (9.69) has less of an impact in the show’s overall rating compared to the 24-episode first season (9.88).

The shows I’ve rated the most are Lost (six seasons), the American version of The Office (six complete seasons plus the current ongoing one) and South Park (eight seasons). Various factors go into which shows I’ve rated more. South Park is so high since it’s such an easy show to watch, both in availability (Netflix) and content. I can put an episode of South Park on and look at other stuff on the computer, and I’ll still have a good enough idea to give that episode a grade. It’s not so easy with a show like 24 or Breaking Bad.

Here are my top-rated shows: (as of 1/3/11)

  1. 9.86 – The Office (BBC)
  2. 9.70 – Lost
  3. 9.60 – Dexter
  4. 9.58 – Dollhouse
  5. 9.50 – Firefly
  6. 9.48 – Breaking Bad
  7. 9.45 – Veronica Mars
  8. 9.43 – Battlestar Galactica
  9. 9.40 – Arrested Development
  10. 9.37 – Friday Night Lights

These ratings only reflect what I’ve seen. For example, I don’t have Showtime, so I watch Dexter when the DVDs come out on Netflix. And for past shows like Battlestar Galactica or Veronica Mars, the above rating only includes what I’ve seen. I haven’t started the second season of Veronica Mars, and I’m only through the first two seasons of BSG.

So what will this blog be? I doubt I’ll feel like writing something about every episode of television I watch, but this gives me the space to talk about what I’m watching and how it compares to what I’ve seen before. I read a lot of show reviews (AV Club, etc.), but I try to stay away from reading them until I’ve seen the episode and rated it myself.

My write-ups won’t look like the episode reviews you’ll see at those kinds of sites. I don’t know that anyone else watches TV like this, but it’s a fun hobby for me. If no one ever reads this blog, that’ll be fine with me. But if there is anyone out there that finds this interesting, here you go.