Brow Beat

Anyone who claims that this is the golden age of television should page through the anorexic new TV Guide , which covers Dec. 21-Jan. 3. It's a fortnight in which the highlights include Little Chocolatiers , "a pair of pint-size confectioners whip up chocolatey treats"; Durham County , "a Canadian-made crime drama" that is apparently about to begin its second series (a televisual koan: If a show premieres on Ion and no one watches, does it deserve a mention in TV Guide ?); and What I Hate About Me , in which "women gripe about themselves, then get help fixing their flaws."

What is a TV junkie to do? (Remember, the average amount of time viewers spent watching television during the 2008-09 season was four hours and 49 minutes per day.) Personally, I'll be performing the DVR equivalent of spring cleaning, catching up on the shows that have piled up on my TiVo. I started out with Leverage , a corporate revenge fantasy in which a gang of grifters channel Robin Hood and Karl Marx, and then I plan to take in Season 3 of Big Love before new episodes begin in the New Year. But what comes after this weekend? There's a limit to the number of Law & Order reruns a New Yorker can watch without getting paranoid.

So, Brow Beat readers, what should I watch? Amanda Hamilton of South Carolina is attempting to catch up on the entire Lost back story to prepare herself for the final episodes in spring 2010. That seems like a summer's worth of work. If you have any ideas for how I can get through the holidays without resorting to Hoarders , please send them to browbeatTV@gmail.com or message @junethomas on Twitter.

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