May 6, 2014--Law & Order

We have a problem.

With considerable effort and tenacity, via Netflix streaming, we worked our way through nearly five seasons of The Good Wife (112 episodes!) and are, like the rest of America, waiting for the final two episodes to air.

Questions await resolution--

Will Alicia Florrick quit her firm and return to Lockhart & Gardner, to join Diane as co-senior partner? What will Kalinda be up to next and who will she take to bed? And what about the Michael J. Fox character, Louis (the Devil) Canning? With the remaining year of his life, will he work to rebuild LG or finally, from within, succeed in bringing it down? And then what about Alicia's husband Peter, the governor? Will he be able to fend off accusations of voter fraud, stay out of jail, and keep the bimbos at bay?

So you see, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

But, very soon, we will be done with The Good Wife, as we are with the 26 episodes of House of Cards, until at least next fall.

Thus our problem--what to do between now and then?

For decades we avoided watching TV series. Claiming this was because we wanted to reserve ourselves for "higher things" such as reading. OK, also to compulsively watch news on TV. But we avoided all series, in truth worried we'd like them, get drawn in, and even addicted.

What happened to so dramatically change our viewing habits?

Last summer, over lobster rolls with our friend Ann, she told us that via streaming she was watching for a second time all episodes of West Wing.

Now, Ann is a very accomplished person. She has been a dean and vice president at a number of major universities and and we were surprised to hear that she was so involved with TV shows of this kind. If anything, one would take her for a PBS/C-SPAN type.

"You've never seen it?" she was incredulous to learn, "I would have thought . . ."

"I know a couple of people who were involved," I said, "Gene Sperling, who wrote a few episodes and I think was a story consultant, and Anna Deavere Smith who . . ."

"Played Nancy McNally," Ann said, "the president's national security advisor. You should give it a try. I think you'll love it."

And indeed we did. We watched all 154 episodes over two months and loved them all. Some days, actually nights, watching four or five, staying up as late as 2:00 a.m.

But now . . .

We couldn't make ourselves watch more that the first 15 minutes of the first episode of Game of Thrones. Too much gratuitous violence. And we didn't do much better with Breaking Bad, touted by a number of fiends to whom we confessed we had become fully addicted to entertainment programming. We watched the first two episodes but didn't get hooked. Again, too violent, too grimy, and not about a subject we care about--a professor making and dealing methamphetamine. Really?

The Wire sounds good--also recommended, especially by a cousin who grew up in Baltimore where it was set. But it doesn't appear to be available vis streaming, only DVD discs and we don't have a VCR up in Maine and have no intention of getting one. We're even thinking about leaving our Roku device in New York to keep Maine as media-free as we can handle.

Another friend, who is a confessed TV addict and has great taste in books, movies, theater, and food, has been talking about Law & Order for years. It's her favorite show and stars Jerry Orbach. Good enough for me. So while waiting for the return of House of Cards, Good Wife, and, I almost forgot, Homeland, we'll check it out.

Netflix does stream it so maybe we will take Roku with us, and since it ran on TV for 20, yes, 20 years, there are 456, yes, 456 episodes. I calculate that if we limit ourselves to just one a day, it will take 14 months to get through all of them. All right, if it grabs us we'll watch two a day over only seven months.

But if our experience with West Wing is a guide, we'll get high on five a day, staying up to at least midnight, and this means we'll be done in about three months. That could work.

But, then again, after that, what will we watch? Maybe West Wing all over again? Like Ann.

I'll let you know how we do. As they say, stay tuned.