2017 TV Resolutions

Don’t over do it — just do it

The post-Christmas-pre-Oscar season is a short stretch of limited options at the box office and on the cable box. As with other, less fun parts of one’s life, this is a good time to reflect on what you wanted to do in 2016, what happened, and what changes you are looking to make in 2017. Resolutions can be a real bear to manage. I made 25 resolutions last year and kept exactly zero of them. I failed because none of them were automatic.

Making automatic choices is the only way to get the winds of change blowing. Make a choice once, and let the tools you are using do the work for you. The only actual choice you have to make is whether to continue or not.

Entertainment decisions follow the same logic — you can resolve to do a million things like:

• Watch The Americans
• Check out deep premium cable hits (Black Sails, Power, Ash vs. Evil Dead)
• Care about shows your smart friends/favorite podcasts talk about constantly (looking at you, The Girlfriend Experience)
• Explore Amazon Prime beyond Transparent

And maa-AAAA-any more. But be honest with yourself: how possible is completing this list? How daunting is it already with only four suggestions? We’re already up to 50 hours of potential binge-watching content and haven’t touched The Young Pope. If the goal of a resolution is to make a positive change, then this can only happen when the plan supporting the resolution is simple. Below are a few high-level ideas that can bring about sweeping change.

Resolve To: Use your DVR To Explore

Choosing something new to watch is a daunting task. Why? Because there are a million options at any given moment. Going to the Home Screen of any On-Demand system regardless of your cable provider is like asking a first-year high school student what Master’s program they’d like to study after college. They might have an idea about what they’d like to do, but no idea as to what the in’s and out’s of that decision will include. Picking what to watch can be such a daunting task because as a consumer, you can only make choices based on the information given and in most cases, that information is what screamed at you through commercials on TV, ads online, or non-skippable pre-roll video.

Only remembering a show is on and deciding to watch a show are two different things. Remembering is not deciding. Use the tools you have to make a decision. On-Demand menus are no longer lists of what you can watch if you know what you’re looking for; they have evolved to include curated lists and thought starters. Let the editors at your cable company do all of the heavy liftings and see what they believe that you should be enjoying. Also, cable is like $200 a month. For that much money, I want all the heavy lifting done for me.

Resolve To: Just Dive In

If you want to watch a show, just watch it. Get in there. If you like it, you can always go back and start from the beginning. With this mindset, all previous episodes become the icing on the cake instead of a daunting amount of TV homework.

Resolve To: Get Out Of Your Genre Zone

TV: It’s Good Now. Virtually ALL TV is good now. The shows you like are good, and the shows you aren’t watching are good. With that knowledge at your fingertips, it’s time to expand your genre palette and see what else is out there. Your favorites will be there when you get back, I promise.

Resolve To: Trust The Choices You Make

Every few weeks, I go through the lists of what movies are playing on cable and set any attractive options to record then I forget about them. When I want to watch a movie, I know I have a curated list waiting. This strategy isn’t new — I’m sure you do something similar. The resolution I’m making is to trust my former self and the decisions I made previously. Do I feel like watching Hail, Caesar! or the Point Break remake right now? No, I don’t. But Former Padraic thought it was a good idea, so I am resolving to trust him. Maybe he’s on to something. This strategy takes the pressure off making a decision right now because I made the decision weeks ago.

Resolve To: Consider Another Opinion

You already know what you like, and you know that there is tons of it waiting for you. You will not run out of the things you already like. With that knowledge in the bank, venture out to see the other side of your opinion. Watch clips from Trevor Noah AND Tomi Lahren. Watch MSNBC AND Fox News. Read Facebook AND The New York Times. Basically accept that if something is being talked about, someone thinks it’s important even if that person isn’t you. Understanding the other side of an opinion is just as valuable as having one of your own.

Find the topics that grab your interest and look at it from all angles. There is no way you can lose with this strategy because you either increase your knowledge, or you validate your previous feelings. The result is well-roundedness, and in media, that’s the best thing for which you can hope.

2017 is going to be THE year, team. It has to be. Enjoy it in all the ways you haven’t enjoyed a year before.