List #15: TV Shows I’ve Watched (Revisited)

The first post I wrote for this blog once I changed its focus way back in 2009 (even before I changed the post title format!) was a list of television shows that I’d watched a large portion of. “What follows is a list of all the television shows that I have either seen from beginning to end, every episode that has been broadcast so far, or from the beginning up to a certain point in the series, but every episode in between.” This is an update to that list, with a slight alteration in format. Since there are probably too many shows to stick with all of those criteria (thanks to the proliferation of Netflix, Hulu, and other VOD services), I’m just going to list those shows of which I’ve seen all existing episodes. That includes both currently running shows (as long as I’m up to date) and those that have completed. These will be listed in order of total length, without ads. Here goes!

• Stargate SG-1 – 10 seasons, 214 episodes, 9,202 minutes
• 24 – 8 seasons, 192 episodes, 8,256 minutes
• Lost – 6 seasons, 121 episodes, 5,324 minutes
• Battlestar Galactica – 4 seasons, 75 episodes, 3,300 minutes
• Futurama – 6 seasons, 114 episodes, 2,508 minutes
• Torchwood – 4 seasons, 41 episodes, 2,120 minutes
• Deadwood – 3 seasons, 36 episodes, 1,980 minutes
• Twin Peaks – 2 seasons, 30 episodes, 1,504 minutes
• Life on Mars [UK] – 2 seasons, 16 episodes, 960 minutes
• Once Upon a Time – 1 season 20 episodes, 900 minutes
• The Walking Dead – 2 seasons, 19 episodes, 897 minutes
• Kings – 1 season, 13 episodes, 604 minutes
• Firefly – 1 season, 14 episodes, 588 minutes
• Alcatraz – 1 season, 13 episodes, 559 minutes
• American Horror Story – 1 season, 12 episodes, 504 minutes
• The River – 1 season, 8 episodes, 344 minutes

And, I think that’s it. For those shows that meet the criteria for this list. The ones in blue, since you may have been wondering, are shows that are currently on (though at least two of them are probably cancelled); the others have concluded, in one way or another.. And, this list doesn’t include shows like Game of Thrones, of which I’ve seen all but the most recent episode. That’s a close call, but this is accurate up to today, so I thought I should keep it that way. It also doesn’t include the spin-off TV movies, or miniseries, or whatever (Twin Peaks’ Fire Walk With Me, BSG’s Razor and the Plan, etc.) which for the most part I’ve watched.

So what does this all add up to? 39,550 minutes, or 27 days, 11 hours, and 10 minutes. Not including ads. A lot of these I watched recorded, online, or on DVD, so for the most part there weren’t ads. But it’s still a lot of time. And it’s not including, as I mentioned before, shows that I haven’t seen all of. So, the 4 seasons of Buffy, the 6 of Doctor Who, or the 4 of How I Met Your Mother? Not on here. Because I haven’t seen all of it. So this is a list in progress. And it does still scare me a little that such a small segment of the TV I watch adds up to such a large number. (By the way, all stats here come from Wikipedia — episode number, length, etc., so they could be a little wrong.)

Still, as I said in the first post on this subject, I think it was time well-spent. There were bad episodes here and there, but for the most part this was all enjoyable TV. I’ll tell you more about what I thought were the best episodes in another, forthcoming post (which hopefully will arrive more quickly than this one did).

How about you? What’s your TV number — how much time have you watched, given the above restrictions? Let me know in the comments!