I managed to miss Seinfeld altogether when it was first shown on UK TV.

Ah, that’s famously because of the shitty scheduling on BBC2. The same applied to Larry Sanders, the DVD set of which I gorged on last weekend. It’s an incomplete set, but it’s been selected by Shandling to have a story arc of its own for new viewers, or those who only watched a few episodes.

(That’s another weird phenomenon: plenty of Americans simply don’t know about Larry Sanders, because HBO existed in a parallel TV universe, and it never made it to syndication.)

On a slight tangent, there’s also the issue of leaked pilots for the American shows set to start next month. If they’re deliberately leaked, then it’s a fascinating strategy, since there’s just too much damn new stuff to absorb, even if you can record one channel and watch another. You might lose out in the premiere ratings war, but get people in at ep. 2; or you might get people setting the season pass in advance. Of course, if the leaks aren’t even tacitly encouraged, that’s all moot.

You know, apart from my DS, the last console I owned was a Nintendo SNES. What would you recommend, then? And which games?

I would prescribe an intense course of videogaming to remedy your problem.

My normal “other way of getting hold of the dvd” is to rent it from lovefilm or somesuch dvd library – this has a different graph, as you would expect, with two/three episodes watched in an evening, and then the two day wait for the dvd to turn round. Rinse and repeat.

So you are always watching a previous series that you know is good, because everyone has watched it.

So for example you would be watching Heroes right now. Because it’s all aired. Then you could watch House (which finishes tonight). etc etc. As long as you are always watching the last finished series you will be fine.

Or you can BitTorrent it. And then buy it on iTunes to appease any guilt you might have (and make it legal)

The whole point of paying is so that I wouldn’t have to wait, dammit. Money is a substitute for time, in this equation.

And as for the iTunes UK TV store, I’m not sure I can wait until they’re (inevitably) allowed to start selling the shows after they’ve aired on UK TV (whether terrestrial or other) – I want to see them now, damnit.

I’m with ‘Sour Grapes’ on this, in that, when it comes to ‘entertainment’, there are so many episodes and so many series I frankly don’t have time to watch them on a regular basis on TV anyway, so I often miss them completely, and, if I subsequently find they were worth watching, rent or buy the DVDs later.

There is no “watercooler moment” missed for me because I am self-employed and have no friends anyway.

I find podcast consumption tends to go in binges too – currently I have nearly 600 unheard podcasts, and, rather than listen to a nice selection, I’ll binge on multiple episodes of the same podcast in one sitting or over a few days, depending on the length, until I’ve caught up.

Ironically I started watching Seinfeld again a few days ago. Someone got me the DVD of seasons 1-3, I watched a few then left in a draw. I am now addicted.

Converting them to Ipod must have been a right hassle, but I suppose if you have to commute to work…

Your favourite Seinfeld character? (George for me, but they are all very likeable.)

And in fairness my typos, spelling and issues with their/there where/were type words, doesn’t leave me much room to criticise.

I loved to see that consumer ….

This is where Sky Plus is great as you can rack them up.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when iTunes UK starts doing TV shows. I think you’ll get a lot more people storing them up. And a lot less TV watching.

24 is probably the only show I can only watch on DVD. The rest having them on Sky Plus gives me the mix of watching how I want to, but not ruining my life by never leaving the house.

Then just like you I watch them at my own pace, which always includes binge-viewing of like three hours at a time until I’m gagging and falling over. Right now it’s Season Three of Six Feet Under. I’ve watched a total of 18 episodes since last Saturday 11 August.

The big drawback is what you might call “watercooler TV” — I’m always behind the rest of the world, so there’s nobody to talk to about episodes by the time I get around to seeing them. The international TV viewing sequence now goes: US audiences, UK audiences, Flemish audiences, me.

But at least we have blogs. I’ve blogged asynchronously about The Sopranos, and I’ll do the same with SFU. And I may even do it this evening, with your inspiration.

Sorry to go on. Fast-forward the boring bits.