Before Streaming, what TV shows did you make the time to tune in for?

[Dice]

Streaming services have made watching stuff much more convenient. But many moons ago you had to work your TV watching more according to TV scheduling.

So what television shows did you schedule yourself around? What big shows do you remember tuning in week after week for?

For like a good 6 years (of the shows incredibly long 15 seasons) I was really big into ER. It was the first TV drama I got into when I was younger. It holds up I'd say! Bunch of good looking doctors (actually a great cast of regulars) and the pacing was pretty tight.

 

[chefbags]

Heroes. That was my show back in middle school. Then of course the seasons went to shit as it went on lol.

Also those NBC/ABC shows that kept getting canceled after its first season, Surface, FlashForward. Damn I wish those shows at least got a chance to get another season.

 

[Unknownlight]

None, in a way. I remember having to constantly use a VHS recorder because my schedule seemed to never line up with the shows I wanted to watch.

 

[Wrexis]

Stargate SG-1, no exceptions.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Dragon Ball Z

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

LOST.

 

[Conditional-Pancakes]

A lot of HBO stuff. I remember watching Six Feet Under, True Blood, and a lot of Game of Thrones like that.

 

[MrNewVegas]

The last thing I ever kept up with on cable TV was the last season of House.

 

[Deleted member 18400]

Survivor. Yeah sue me, I love it.

 

[Akuma-san メカ豪鬼]

I never liked watching TV shows back then. Streaming made me like them. Though when I was a kid I tried watching animes like Yuyu hakusho.

 

[thekonamicode]

I dropped off the surface of Planet Appointment Television in 2004. I did always tune into Seinfeld and The Simpsons when I was a kid though.

 

[TaySan]

Adult Swim everything as a teen. Also, Big Brother/Survivor with family.

 

[BasilZero]

Twilight Zone (the original)
The Outer Limits (the original)
Goosebumps
Are You Afraid of the Dark
The Walking Dead
Game of Thrones
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Angel
Charmed
Hercules The Legendary Journeys
Xena Warrior Princess
StarGate SG-1
Star Trek Next Generation
Family Matters

Non-anime and non cartoon of course lol - too much to list due to being spoiled by Toonami/Adult Swim/Cartoon Network, Nickolodeon, FoxKids/WB, and Disney Channel.

But it was sporadic...due to timing/availability and stuff.

I'm gonna do a marathon of the above shows once I get the chance and find out which platform is best....started a 30 day trial of Hulu today just to see how it is and....watched 3 eps of Family Matters today....damn good times lol.

 

[Revolver_Ocelot]

Prison Break and 24.

 

[MadLaughter]

Lost, absolutely.

 

[Temascos]

Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis. I remember being so hyped for The Siege Part 3 in particular, and I didn't want to miss it.

 

[NullPointerException]

LOST, 24 and earlier seasons of Breaking Bad when it was on TV before it hit Netflix.

 

[THEVOID]

Twilight Zone (Original) it was on every night at 10PM

Cheers
X-Files

 

[Yourfawthaaa]

The walking dead

 

[Forearm_Star]

Game of thrones might have been the last, "must tune in weekly" show for me.

 

[Tawney Bomb]

WWE Raw, WCw Nitro and Dragon Ball Z were the only shows I went out of my way to watch.

 

[Chrizzy_81]

X files, 24, Sopranos, Lost

 

[Rangerx]

The X-files, Red Dwarf, Father Ted, Star Trek TNG.

 

[JFoul]

I didn't really start watching tv shows until streaming.

 

[Old Man Spike]

"Before Streaming"

I subscribe to zero streaming services and still use an antenna, so I still make time to watch the things I want to watch.

 

[Aiqops]

Stargate Atlantis
24
Lost
King of Queens
Prince of Bel Air
Dragon Ball Z
Home Improvement
Ranma
Digimon
Yu Gi Oh
Kaito Jeanne
Inuyasha
Beyblade
Detective Conan
Kickers
Wedding Peach
Greys Anatomy
Supernatural
Desperate Housewives


Weekend morning cartoons:

Batman Beyond
Superman animated tv series
Shaman King
Men in Black cartoon
Mega Man cartoon

 

[Dan]

before streaming I DVR'd.

 

[Tremorah]

Its been over a decade since ive had a TV or watched linear TV, im guessing some saturday night live comedy thing?

 

[Naphu]

God, I hardly remember those days lol. I wanna say, Arrested Development. Someone mentioned Walking Dead; that was one of them. I'm not gonna idealize old cable/broadcast TV but there's something to be said for setting time aside and making it an event. Like the Superbowl or something.

 

[Nameless]

X-Men Saturday morning was a legitimate event.

Dragonball Z on Toonnami every day after school. You're God damn right even re-runs.

Sportscenter before school/work and/or before bed for a huge chunk of life.

Shark Week, pretty much every year we'd make sure to watch as a family.

LOST, religiously. Later seasons I'd download the episodes off Megaupload later that night or the next day and watch them again.

24 from S5 on.

Raw/Nitro - From my parents extending my bed time on Mondays in Elementary school until I moved out I caught wrasslin every single Monday night I was at home & conscious.

 

[kamineko]

I got rid of cable a long time ago; 2007 maybe? I remember tuning in for heroes, early lost, and some hbo stuff. Mainly sopranos and deadwood

 

[TheRyzzl]

How long ago we talking? Cause it was like a tradition for my family to order out and watch TGIF every Friday.

 

[Griffith]

X-Files, Seinfeld, Most of those 90's Mtv cartoons (Aeon Flux, The Head, Daria, The Maxx and *sigh* yes... Beavis and Butthead...), Rurouni Kenshin (boy I sure know how to pick 'em...), Evangelion, Dragonball/Z/GT, DuckTales... I watched plenty more shows but those are the ones I remember specifically watching when they would be on tv.

 

[jph139]

I mean, Saturday morning cartoons as a kid, obviously.

I think NBC Thursdays in the late 00s/early 10s is the only time I really, like, was dedicated to watching programming weekly, though. When it was The Office/Parks and Rec/Community/30 Rock... a real golden age for sitcoms.

 

[subpar spatula]

I remember being in drama class in high school, and we stayed late after school to prepare things for the play. I was just so eager to go home and watch House. The moment we were done I ran the 5km home, got there for the last like 20 minutes. I don't think I have ever been into a show like that since.

 

[drowsy]

I was talking about this with some similarly-aged co-workers a while back and we all basically had the same story: we got internet access right around the turn of the millenium, which was also when we started getting interested in TV shows besides cartoons, and quickly figured out that the episodes shown on Finnish TV were months behind the US so we all ended up finding alternative methods of catching the episodes. As a result, we all had this 2-3 year period of actually caring about broadcast TV before convenience and the need to take part in online discussions won over and we turned into dirty pirates. Personally I watched the first three-ish seasons of Stargate SG-1 and the first season of 24 on TV, and then started downloading whatever I wanted to watch. It's been twenty damn years and that's still by far the most convenient way to watch the exact show I want to when I want to, which is just such a bummer.

And just to make myself feel like slightly less of a dirtbag: I subscribe to a bunch of streaming services, and there's literally thousands of Blu-rays and DVDs in my living room, so it's not like I'm not spending money on this stuff. But so long as companies keep on selling rights to shows to TV networks that want me to watch their ad-riddled broadcasts at specific times of day, I'm going to keep on finding other ways of keeping up with the shows I'm interested in as they air.

 

[hom3land]

Earliest memory was rushing home to watch ER.
Oh highlander and voyager for the first season.

 

[Boy]

Hercules, Xena, mad tv, and tales from the crypt on a Saturday night when i was a kid.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

If we're talking just fictional shows, then I don't remember making a point to watch many things. I did watch a lot of game shows and shows about gaming and technology during the 80's and 90's though.

I stopped watching them around the time when Who Wants to be a Millionaire inspired all future game shows to become all tense and dark.

 

[sappyday]

Breaking Bad

 

[Disco Infernal]

None. I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't have a vcr or DVR. Live tv outside of sports has never been a thing to me.

 

[Cipherr]

Stargate SG-1, no exceptions.

Click to shrink...

Yeeeep done and done. I didn't catch watching the live episodes until the later seasons but this was it until I started keeping up with the early seasons of Fringe. After that I cannot remember following any live. All recordings and watching them later or streaming.

 

[kelik]

House and Heroes. Good times........

 

[Turbowaffles]

Power Rangers

 

[Keywork]

South Park (This was my first genuine "can't miss" show)
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
The Soup (Joel McHale era)
Battlestar Galactica (2004 version)
Heroes (Seasons 1 and 2)
House
24
NYPD (later seasons)
ER (later seasons)

 

[LuigiMario]

I feel like the main thing I remember is waking up early Saturday morning to watch Yugioh and the other stuff of Kids WB and Fox Kids.

by the time I was old enough to watch much beyond that, my family had DVR or I would just pirate stuff online

 

[PrepaidPostage]

Saturday morning cartoons

Burn Notice
Psych

Simpsons & Family Guy on Sundays
The various Star Treks

Probably the last shows I tuned into live would have been around 2012 or 13- Spartacus and The first two seasons of Game of Thrones

Does anyone recall the jingle "woo News Hey Strange Wild Skeeter Hey Strange Wild Skeeter Blam Animorphs" in order to remember Nickelodeon's evening lineup?

 

[Pookmunki]

24 - had to have Jack Bauer Power Hour

 

[NinjaScooter]

Game of Thrones was probably the last one

 

[Quinton]

Star Trek DS9
Star Trek VOY
Star Trek ENT
Stargate SG-1
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Universe (somewhat begrudgingly)
Farscape
Battlestar Galactica
Burn Notice (for the first few seasons, primarily for its genre actors/actresses)
Game of Thrones
The Expanse (up until season 4, since it's on Amazon now)
Dark Matter (I tuned out after a bit, though)
Babylon 5 (it was mostly my grandmother who made sure it was on; I was very young)
Sliders
Earth: Final Conflict (talk about a show falling apart even worse than Sliders)

I feel like my tastes in television are... pretty obvious.