Dave on Demand: Better living through DVRs: More TV, and faster

Boy, that DVR is a game-changer, isn't it?

Getting one of those gizmos is like having your first child: Your life is suddenly altered in ways you couldn't have imagined - well, at least your life as a TV viewer.

It's opened up new horizons for me, allowing me to regularly catch Jon Stewart, David Letterman, and other scintillating personalities whose shows were simply on too late for me to consume (unless I was willing to nod off at my desk the next day).

I can also take a chance on marginal shows, like Whale Wars, that I never would have tried before.

Sure, I had a VCR for years, but they were a pain to program. And do you know how much tape you needed for a week's worth of Conan? You inevitably ended up with a pile of cassettes that never got played back.

Now I watch what I want when I want. God is truly merciful.

So many people are now time-shifting - recording shows and watching them at their leisure - that Nielsen has had to change its charts. The ratings tracker now has a category, Live+7, that reflects the cumulative audience for a program in its scheduled time period as well as over the following week.

Among the most DVRed series, according to Nielsen, are American Idol, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Survivor, 24, House, Lost, and Bones.

The only purpose of this statistic, as far as I can tell, is it gives the networks specious new ways to exalt the popularity of their shows. The networks can chop up ratings numbers more deftly than a hibachi chef.

Not only can I watch a wider range of television, I can also watch it faster. When you're zapping through commercials, a one-hour drama takes about 40 minutes and a half-hour sitcom about 18.

I don't remember the last time I sat through a commercial - well, except for the morning shows like Today, which I still watch in real time while I'm brewing coffee and making my daughter breakfast.

(Note to self: Get an additional DVR for the kitchen.)

Even when I'm watching "live" television now, I give the show about a 15-minute head start before I begin. That way I can fly through the commercials and still catch up with the episode right at the finish line.

The only program that strategy doesn't work with is American Idol (or as I call it, Sing a Little, Sell a Lot).

The other night, I spotted a two-hour Idol an entire episode of The New Adventures of Old Christine and part of a Villanova hoops game - about 45 minutes in all - and still caught up to the actual broadcast before the last two performers took the stage.

The only thing mightier than the DVR is the nefarious Ryan Seacrest.

About face. A few weeks ago I went on record as liking TNT's Trust Me. Now I can't watch it at all. That's because Monica Potter, who plays advertising copywriter Sarah Krajicek-Hunter, is a virtual clone of The View's execrable Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

That's a deal-breaker.

A curdled way. The last few weeks, the spookily enthusiastic Mario Lopez has been ceaselessly promoting Philadelphia Cream Cheese during his soft-focus celebrity chronicle Extra, asking viewers to send in their favorite cream-cheese recipes.

Just wondering: Exactly how does this dairy product have anything to do with showbiz news?

Weak sister. What happened to Cameron (Summer Glau) on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? She's supposed to be a killing machine sent from the future.

But all she does anymore is creepily stare at people as if she were examining insects. Where's the old get-up-and-slaughter? Is her battery running down?

Long ago. Have you seen NBC's promos for the new season of The Celebrity Apprentice that begins tomorrow night?

They promise "more drama, bigger celebrities."

Then we see clips of Joan Rivers and a confrontation between comics Tom Green and Andrew Dice Clay. Also in the cast: b-ball bad boy Dennis Rodman and skater Scott Hamilton.

Hey, Donald, the '80s called. They want their "bigger celebrities" back.