I've been ruminating for the last few weeks about the possibility of canceling my cable television subscription. Anyone familiar with my viewing habits will instantly recognize this as a significant moment, but this is hardly an attempt to ditch television altogether. While this decision would definitely curb my ability to channel surf or catch a movie on HBO by chance, my intent is to miss as little of my current "planned" television watching as possible. That is, I want to find alternatives to watching my favorite shows on live TV (or more accurately recorded from live TV via TiVo).

The alternative many people will immediately suggest is DVD. I know Josh routinely waits until a show is available on DVD, then puts in his Netflix queue. Sadly, I'm not quite there yet. I need the immediacy of watching a show within a few days of its original broadcast. This may be an unnecessary conceit, but I have to take baby steps, folks.

The way I see it, there are three options readily available to me: Amazon Unbox, the iTunes Music Store, and free episode streaming on the internet. For financial reasons, free streaming is the best option. After all, it would kinda defeat the purpose of this little quest if my Amazon and iTunes purchases added up to more than my cable bill. And yes, I know I can get just about any show for free via Bittorrent, but I'm keeping things legal here.

Here's a list of all the shows I watch along with their best availability from a non-cable alternative:

30 Rock
Free streaming (NBC.com)

Battlestar Galactica
Free streaming (SCI FI Rewind)

Bones
Free streaming (Fox.com)

CSI
Free streaming (CBS.com)

Family Guy
Free streaming (Fox.com)

House
Free streaming (Fox.com)

How I Met Your Mother
Free streaming (CBS.com)

Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Amazon Unbox ($1.99/episode)

Lost
Free streaming (ABC.com)

The Office
Free streaming (NBC.com)

Saturday Night Live
Some free streaming (selected skits on NBC.com)
Amazon Unbox ($1.99/episode)

Scrubs
Free streaming (NBC.com)

South Park
Free streaming (SouthParkStudios.com)

Top Chef
NONE

So "Top Chef" and "Saturday Night Live" would be the big sacrifices here. I can probably get by with the clips that SNL posts online, but I would miss "Top Chef" tremendously. Would I miss it enough to singlehandedly justify a monthly cable bill of over $50? Absolutely not. Besides, I can certainly plan one trip to the gym per week based on when I can catch "Top Chef" on the elliptical.

This analysis, of course, fails to take into account special broadcasts, like sports and award shows. Honestly, though, I rarely watch sports anymore and I just don't see spending hundreds of dollars each year just to watch an overly long Oscar broadcast.

So, this pretty much seals the deal that I'll be ditching my cable within the next couple of weeks. The only question is how much my internet bill will increase once it goes a la carte instead of being bundled with my digital cable.

Who knows? Maybe DSL will be cheaper.

UPDATE (2:50pm): Since publishing this post, I discovered that SNL is available for purchase from Amazon Unbox for $1.99, so those selected clips on NBC.com aren't the only option.

While I've had love affairs with Top Chef, The Amazing Race and Rock Star: INXS, without question my favorite reality show of all time is The Mole, a competition hosted by Anderson Cooper that aired only two seasons in its pure form. It later reappeared in a horrible celebrity edition with Ahmad Rashad as host, but that was but a pale shadow of the original.

A quick summary of the show's premise from Wikipedia...

Players in The Mole must work together to complete various physical and mental challenges to build up a significant cash prize for the winner. One of them, however, is "the Mole," a double agent hired by the producers to sabotage the efforts of the group. The Mole must be careful to avoid drawing suspicion. Using journals, players must track vast amounts of minutiae about the person(s) they suspect of being the Mole, such as seating positions, clothing colors, minor discussion topics, and so on. The quiz at the end of each episode tests players' knowledge of the Mole, and determines by lowest score (or slowest time, in the event of a tie) who is eliminated from the game.

The show has been gone a long time, but yesterday Variety reported the following...

ABC has given a 10-episode order to Stone & Co. Entertainment ("Tim Gunn's Guide to Style") to revive the reality competish, which hasn't aired in four years.

Casting and pre-production have begun on the show, which will likely start shooting later this spring. ABC is looking to run "The Mole" this summer.

Rashad is not being asked to return. With Cooper now at CNN and unavailable to host, producers say they are "looking for someone in the Anderson mode, a little mysterious but full of comedy."

[Variety] ABC bringing back 'The Mole' (via TV Squad)

If I'm going to break 4 months of silence, you know it's gotta be for something monumental, right?

Wrong.

I absolutely LOVE Geico's series of caveman commercials. I laugh hysterically just thinking about them. Not only do I actually watch the ads every single time they come on, but I've spent way too much time hanging out in their crib.

Anyway, imagine my delight when I read this item...

ABC is developing a single-camera sitcom based on the characters to be penned by Joe Lawson, the advertising copywriter who created the spots. The show will feature three of our early human ancestors battling prejudice as they try to live ordinary lives in Atlanta.

God bless you, ABC. Hopefully this will make up for the recent decline of "Lost."

[TV Squad] Geico's cavemen score their own sitcom

Former talk show host Mike Douglas passed away early this morning in Palm Beach, Florida. Today was his 81st birthday.

In the years before I started school, it was a rare weekday that I didn't sit down to watch "The Mike Douglas Show." I was too young to stay up and watch Johnny Carson, and shows like "Solid Gold" and "Friday Night Videos" were still a few years away, so my introduction to popular culture came largely by way of Douglas and his daily guests.

From his Associated Press obituary...

Douglas' afternoon show aired from 1961 to 1982. It featured his ballad and big-band singing style, other musicians, comedians, sports figures and political personalities, including seven former, sitting or future presidents.

"People still believe `The Mike Douglas Show' was a talk show, and I never correct them, but I don't think so," Douglas said in his 1999 memoir, "I'll Be Right Back: Memories of TV's Greatest Talk Show."

"It was really a music show, with a whole lot of talk and laughter in between numbers."

Douglas did about 6,000 shows, most 90 minutes long, and estimated that at its peak the syndicated show was seen in about 230 cities.

Tom Kelly, who co-authored Douglas' memoir, said he had about 30,000 guests appear on his show over the years.

"One big key to his great success was he had his ego in check," Kelly said. "He always let the guest have the limelight. He was a fine performer. He could sing, he could do comedy, he did it all, but he always gave the guest the spotlight."

Douglas was among the "early settlers" in daytime talk shows, said Robert Thompson, a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

"Mike Douglas was an old-fashioned traditionalist, holding down the fort while the culture was changing," Thompson said. "He was always the very friendly talk show host, nice to everybody. He would lean toward his guest as if he really cared. He owned that territory."

So I've been dormant again. Could be worse. I could be Jason.

Well, if I'm poking my head back into this here locale, you know it's gotta be for something good, right? And not Paris-Hilton-sings good. GOOD good.

Okay, it probably is actually more Paris-Hilton-sings good, but this clip is simultaneously literary, hilarious, disturbing, brilliantly insightful, and just plain wrong. Not surprisingly, Sesame Workshop (aka the Children's Television Workshop) exerted a great deal of energy to stop this short film from getting wide distribution after its buzz-generating debut at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. But thanks (as usual) to YouTube, we can all now watch in jaw dropping awe...

Confused? Take a quick literature lesson.

[YouTube] Ernest and Bertram