My Guilty TV Pleasures

Everyone has a couple. A few TV shows you watch that you know are cheesy but somehow, much like a car accident, you can't stop looking. There's nothing wrong with this as long as you admit you have a problem. Let me be the first to start the circle of sharing by letting you in on a couple of my favorite guilty pleasures.

VH-1 Shows: I am a total sucker for all those shows; the shows like Black to the Future or I Love the (Fill in the Decade Years) I just can't get enough of. I love the way they interview all the actors and comedians to get their perspective on whatever topic they are discussing on that episode. It's very interesting to get a lot of different perspectives on the same event, plus I laugh out loud when I watch them and no matter how many times I've seen one, I will set up there and watch each and every one whenever there is a marathon on. I love all the shows like this that show up on VH-1 and will continue to watch every single cheesy nostalgic show they make.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer-this is the only show I can honestly say I've seen every single episode of; and I love it. It consists of tales of the one girl in the whole world chosen to fight the vampires and demons and protect the world from their evil plans. I own every single season, which shows that my husband is an enabler to my problem. I love every single episode of this show although I will admit there are some I can't watch often (season 6's"The Body" being one). I like them because I think the writing does very well at taking on large social issues in an hour in very allegorical ways. Case example is in season 2's "Innocence" where Angel loses his soul and starts to torture Buffy the night after they slept together. Most girls are constantly afraid of a guy blowing them off once they are intimate and this episode calls notice to that fear albeit in an exaggerated way. I know everything about the Buffy universe. I can sing every single word to every single song in the musical episode "Once More With Feeling". I know all the romances every character has had, why certain plot points were written in, and even know which actors auditioned for which parts originally. I am officially a Buffy nerd and I let my freak flag fly proudly.

Xena: Warrior Princess-this show is about a warrior during the times of Ancient Greece traveling all over to help people and make amends for her days as a ruthless leader of a band of other warriors who showed mercy only to women and children (except for that one time that resulted in her nemesis Callisto). I love this show!! I do not own any of the seasons (sadly) but not for lack of trying. This show is extremely corny with some of the episodes, plus the under current of lesbianism between Xena and Gabrielle which was never fully explored much to some adolescents boys chagrin. I do love the spin that this show put on some of the old myths even including classical plays such as the Orestes trilogy in one episode. I also love all the actors in this show and how they fit their mythological character, especially Ares, god of War portrayed by the late Kevin Smith. Plus the action sequences were impressive to me enough for me to remember watching them ten years ago when I was in high school. This show is sadly not in syndication so in order to fulfill my fix I will eventually have to buy the seasons but as I have finished buying all the Buffys, you can bet this is next on my wish list.

Muppet Babies-I loved this show as a kid. Aw, who am I kidding? I would love this show now if I could find it on DVDs. As it is, I was able to revisit my childhood briefly when I checked out a VHS of two episodes from my local library "for" my son to watch. I guess as an adult I could see how the show was just a calculated move to make more money off the Muppets, as it was created solely because of the popularity of the baby sequence from the movie The Muppets Take Manhattan. But I still love the show; I love seeing all the Muppets as babies, I love the way their imagination takes them to places far beyond their nursery walls I even love the old black and white footage they splice into the show when the kids are off and away in their adventures. This is one of my favorite shows from childhood that has followed me into adulthood. While I do admit some of it is for nostalgic value, I also just like the whole cute baby aspect of this show. The Muppets are so cute as babies!!!

Veronica Mars-I term this a as guilty pleasure because it didn't last long so I am under the impression that not many other people watched it. But I loved this show starring a quirky Kirsten Bell as Veronica Mars, daughter of the former sheriff/current PI or Neptune, California a girl who, as an outcast from her classmates would routinely be called upon to help them with whatever problems they had. This show only lasted three seasons, which was upsetting for me because this show had so much potential. It had an intelligent heroine who while she got herself into serious situations could always get out of them. One of the other engaging things about it is that it always had one large mystery that hung over the entire season with other smaller mysteries sprinkled through the season like garnish. However I can understand people's disbelief over the situations Veronica got herself into and how she always got out of them without being the worse for wear. But I still liked the show. I found the dialogue snappy and the characters were extremely interesting and multi-layered.

Cleopatra 2525-this show lasted only one year (two seasons) and started out sharing an hour with Jack of All Trades before that show was canceled. It involves a dancer who got frozen in 2001 to get thawed out in the title year and join two other women, Hel (played by Gina Torres) and Sarge (Victoria Pratt) to fight against robots that have taken over the world and forced the humans underground to survive. The main character Cleopatra is a bit of a ditz and of course has a shock being frozen and woken up in a completely different time. It has fighting, robots, and scantily clad women; what about this doesn't scream "guilty pleasure"? Especially when it was coupled with Jack which was about an American spy teaming up with a British spy to stop Napoleon. It was a very corny show but I did love it, plus it had Gina Torres in it and she is one of my favorite actresses.

Regardless of which shows fall into your guilty pleasures, don't be ashamed. Sit back and revel in the guilt because as corny as they can be they are still your favorite shows.