2018 TV Watching Retrospective

As I did an exhaustive analysis of my movie watching in 2018, which soared, my TV watching sorely declined. After nailing 867 episodes of 81 shows last year, all I could manage was 476 episodes of 54 shows. TV is declining for me, what can I say? Here's a graph!

Show	Episodes	Percentage of Total
Seinfeld	35	7.35%
The Good Place	32	6.72%
Arrested Development	31	6.51%
The Office	28	5.88%
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia	23	4.83%
The Simpsons	23	4.83%
Saturday Night Live	21	4.41%
The Venture Bros	20	4.20%
BoJack Horseman	20	4.20%
South Park	18	3.78%
American Vandal	17	3.57%
Ash vs. Evil Dead	15	3.15%
Last Week Tonight	14	2.94%
Broad City	14	2.94%
Future Man	13	2.73%
Brooklyn Nine-Nine	12	2.52%
Rick and Morty	12	2.52%
Mary Shelley's Frankenhole	11	2.31%
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee	10	2.10%
The Fix	10	2.10%
The Last Man on Earth	9	1.89%
Marvel Avengers Assemble	9	1.89%
The End of the Fucking World	8	1.68%
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt	8	1.68%
Disenchantment	8	1.68%
Adventure Time	5	1.05%
Documentary Now!	5	1.05%
Evil Genius	4	0.84%
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law	4	0.84%
Big Mouth	4	0.84%
Monty Python's Flying Circus	3	0.63%
Mystery Science Theater 3000	3	0.63%
Black Mirror	2	0.42%
Community	2	0.42%
Aggretsuko	2	0.42%
Drunk History	2	0.42%
Bob's Burgers	2	0.42%
Dave Chappelle: Equanimity	1	0.21%
The Detour	1	0.21%
Dave Chappelle: The Bird Revelation	1	0.21%
30 Rock	1	0.21%
American Ninja Warrior	1	0.21%
Korgoth of Barbaria	1	0.21%
The Terror	1	0.21%
Seth Rogen's Hilarity for Charity	1	0.21%
Review	1	0.21%
Gurren Lagann	1	0.21%
Futurama	1	0.21%
Sense8	1	0.21%
Maniac	1	0.21%
Family Guy	1	0.21%
Rocko's Modern Life	1	0.21%
A Young Doctor's Notebook	1	0.21%
The Tigers of Scotland	1	0.21%

The most serious show I watched was probably Evil Genius, followed by Tigers of Scotland. Seinfeld won, of course. My Simpsons was way down, after hitting 105 last year and 222 the year before that.

Arrested Development and Always Sunny remain pretty strong, but props to The Good Place for being a relatively recent, contemporary show and not something that peaked in the 90s! I was definitely off my game for most of the year, and not into a ton of new shows like I used to be. The Last Man on Earth was cancelled, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is coming back but not this fall, and I just can't do The Flash anymore. To be honest, I've been kind of sick of The Simpsons after they couldn't have handled their Apu controversy with less aplomb. I'm still super into everything...90s... but stopped regularly watching every week.

I mean, it wasn't that hard to because the show got terrible. STARTING WITH SEASON 28.

What did you watch this year?

2017 Television Watching Review

Yesterday we sank our teeth into every single movie I watched in 2017, but that wasn't all I did. There's also a little thing called Television! Now, I actually gave up any form of TV service in July, but my numbers were surprisingly steady. You mean you don't need cable to watch TV?! Oh my!

You can of course go through everything month-by-month here. Come to think of it, I have no idea why you'd want to. I think next year I'm just going to keep a running tally of each show. I don't care how many months in a row I watched something (although I kind of want to keep track of my 29-month straight streak of watching at least one Simpsons episode).

Anyway, I totaled 786 episodes of 70 distinct shows. Last year I hit 867/81. So, that's kind of a bummer and I'd still like to get to the 1000 mark eventually, but then again - no cable for half the year, and I spent a lot of that time watching movies. Cranking out movies is a little bit more important to me for whatever reason right now.

Title	Episodes	Months Watched	Episodes / Month	%
The Simpsons	105	12	8.8	13.4%
Arrested Development	57	4	14.3	7.3%
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia	51	7	7.3	6.5%
Marvel Avengers Assemble	39	3	13.0	5.0%
Adventure Time	38	6	6.3	4.8%
South Park	37	10	3.7	4.7%
Seinfeld	33	9	3.7	4.2%
Rick and Morty	29	9	3.2	3.7%
Futurama	27	9	3.0	3.4%
The Flash	23	8	2.9	2.9%
Brooklyn Nine-Nine	20	6	3.3	2.5%
Saturday Night Live	16	9	1.8	2.0%
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt	16	2	8.0	2.0%
The Last Man on Earth	15	6	2.5	1.9%
Justice League Unlimited	15	1	15.0	1.9%
Last Week Tonight	14	10	1.4	1.8%
BoJack Horseman	13	1	13.0	1.7%
One Punch Man	12	1	12.0	1.5%
Over the Garden Wall	11	2	5.5	1.4%
Sense8	11	2	5.5	1.4%
New Girl	10	4	2.5	1.3%
Better Call Saul	10	3	3.3	1.3%
Fargo	10	3	3.3	1.3%
The Detour	10	3	3.3	1.3%
Workaholics	10	3	3.3	1.3%
Master of None	10	2	5.0	1.3%
The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story	10	1	10.0	1.3%
Man Seeking Woman	9	3	3.0	1.1%
Stranger Things	9	2	4.5	1.1%
The Punisher	9	2	4.5	1.1%
Mike Tyson Mysteries	8	3	2.7	1.0%
Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later	8	1	8.0	1.0%
Legion	7	2	3.5	0.9%
Zoo	7	1	7.0	0.9%
Taboo	6	2	3.0	0.8%
Typical Rick	6	1	6.0	0.8%
Archer	4	3	1.3	0.5%
Documentary Now!	4	2	2.0	0.5%
Making History	4	2	2.0	0.5%
Justice League	4	1	4.0	0.5%
A Young Doctor's Notebook	3	2	1.5	0.4%
Black Mirror	3	2	1.5	0.4%
Louie	3	2	1.5	0.4%
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee	3	2	1.5	0.4%
Ash vs. Evil Dead	3	1	3.0	0.4%
Community	3	1	3.0	0.4%
Nathan for You	3	1	3.0	0.4%
Review	3	1	3.0	0.4%
Conan	2	2	1.0	0.3%
The Venture Bros	2	2	1.0	0.3%
The Eric Andre Show	2	1	2.0	0.3%
30 for 30: This Was the XFL	1	1	1.0	0.1%
All Hail King Julien	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Broad City	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Chappelle's Show	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Dave Chappelle: Age of Spin	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Dave Chappelle: In the Heart of Texas	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Jerry Before Seinfeld	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Jimmy Kimmel Live!	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Metalocalpyse	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Moral Orel	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Norm MacDonald: Hitler's Dog, Gossip, and Trickery	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Parks and Recreation	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Party Down	1	1	1.0	0.1%
The Bachelor	1	1	1.0	0.1%
The David S. Pumpkins Animated Halloween Special	1	1	1.0	0.1%
The Problem with Apu	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories	1	1	1.0	0.1%
Veep	1	1	1.0	0.1%

None of this is too surprising. Netflix-streaming options dominated. I kind of like The Simpsons, although I hit 222 episodes last year, which is insane. That was really bolstered by having FXX, which would play like eight episodes a night four nights a week. That was it, just plop down and crank that out. This year, unbelievably was a lot of old DVD use. Yes, we're regressing.

And a lot of cartoons. So many damn cartoons. While The Simpsons was down, that allowed other shows to be a little more potent. No show last year other than the residents of Springfield cracked the 50-episode mark and only four were above thirty. This year we had seven. That order was mixed up a bit, with Arrested Development and Always Sunny coming in hot (they finished 41st and 13th last year respectively). That makes sense, though - I binge seasons based on a cycle. Simpsons and South Park tend to be consistent, but I'll crank out an old season every once in a while.

Keep an eye on 2018. What does your list look like?