Dedicated couch potato

I do love me some television. Unfortunately, the pickings are pretty slim on Australian free-to-air at present. I've been getting by on Grey's Anatomy, an occasional episode of Brothers & Sisters, Armstrong & Miller and the delicious 30 Rock (which, of course, Channel Seven chooses to screen at 11.30pm on Monday nights).

Which means that most of my current television fix comes from DVDs. I recently purchased series three of The Office. This was purely out of frustration, because Channel Ten screened half the series and then just left it. So rather than wait and wait until they start up again on Channel Ten's whim, I decided to buy it, gobble up the rest of the series and enjoy the DVD extras.

This series has been a very pleasant surprise, as usually copies of successful television series just don't recreate the original's brilliance (I shudder to think what will happen to Kath & Kim when it is reborn as an American sit-com). However, the American version of The Office is very very funny and clever in its own right: they took the British concept and turned it into something quite different. Can't wait to see series four, which I will also purchase on-line, because at the rate Channel Ten goes, they'll screen it in June 2011.

My other current television dalliance at present is Dexter, the tale of an emotionally-crippled-forensic-expert-by-day-serial-killer-of-serial-killers-by-night kind of fellow, who is one of the oddest heroes ever to appear on screen.

This is dark, disturbing, amusing, can't look away television. I've watched four episodes so far, and I'm hooked.

Which begs two questions. Who said Americans can't make fantastic, off-centre, clever television? And can you imagine the pitch the Dexter creators made to the studio boss?