A TV lover speaks without shame

And I'm not afraid to say it.

Oh, sure, I happily work for a newspaper -- and reading is one of my favorite hobbies, and a good movie is always worth getting off the couch for (thank you, WALL-E and The Dark Knight), and I don't mind going outside for a breath of fresh air now and again -- but most of the time, that box in my living room is my favorite attention portal.

The best part about loving TV right now is that there seems to be a real windfall of quality. Sure, there are the dregs (Another season of Big Brother? Really, CBS?) -- and the stuff that longs to be the dregs (The Baby Borrowers? What did the American people do to NBC's programming department?) -- but the idea that there's "fifty-seven channels and nothin' on" is much less true today than even five years ago.

The explosion of original series on cable, such as AMC's darkly stylish Mad Men, SciFi's extraordinary reboot of Battlestar Galactica, Showtime's witty thriller Dexter, and USA's funny and action-packed Burn Notice (among a host of others up and down the dial), indicates that there is fertile ground for the creative community at these outlets, and that there's an audience looking for something that the broadcast networks aren't providing.

But the over-the-air outlets aren't exactly standing pat. ABC's Lost, particularly in its most recent season, seemingly challenges -- and changes -- the boundaries of serialized television storytelling week after week. Fox's American Idol may have lost a little steam last year, but no other current series draws a wider audience or has permeated pop culture as deeply. NBC's 30 Rock is a wickedly sharp showbiz satire, one that often aims the sharpest barbs at the very network that airs it. And no network has a clearer identity than CBS, with shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation pulling in remarkably consistent viewership week-in, week-out, even during repeats.

Throw in newer shows like ABC's off-center and often-wonderful Pushing Daisies and CBS's hilarious How I Met Your Mother, add in older series like Fox's nearly two-decades old (and still worth watching) The Simpsons and NBC's similarly long-running Law & Order franchise, and the reason I love TV, warts and all, becomes clear.

There's a lot to love.