Welcome to Original Programming, a blog about TV’s second golden age.

For most of my life, I was never a big fan of TV. I watched comedies like the Cosby Show as a kid then Simpsons as a teenager, cartoons (for me it was GI Joe and Transformers), sports and all sorts of other random stuff growing up. I was never glued to TV though or really followed anything on the “boob tube” closely.

I didn’t even have cable for several years following college (to tell the truth I couldn’t really afford it) and then spent several years watching sports on mute while listening to music after I finally got it.

I didn’t understand the premise of “Must See TV,” I hated sitcoms and was bored by procedurals. So basically, I didn’t watch TV.

That was until Dan (my good friend and collaborator on this blog) introduced me to Lost in 2005. Now I have the same criticisms of the show as others, but I will argue that seasons one and two are as entertaining as anything you’ll ever watch on TV. After watching the DVDs for season one and two then missing an episode of season three, I realized I needed a DVR. The rest as they say, was history. I quickly discovered and fell in love with shows like The Wire, Mad Men, Deadwood and more.

Many people talk about right now as a golden age of TV. It’s interesting to note though that we’re actually in a second golden age for TV. I mention this not because this understanding is necessary to understand what’s happening and possibly predict what will happen, but to simply draw comparisons.

In the 1950s TV, which was still a new medium, rose to critical acclaim because of live dramatic anthologies such as The Philco Television Playhouse, Kraft Television Theatre and Playhouse 90. These episodic endeavors captured a nation’s attention and revealed what TV could be just like James Gandolfini did again in 1999 when he ushered in an era of dramatically-driven, thoughtful and intelligent anthology programming by portraying Tony Soprano (though to tell you the truth, the DVR played a big role in this as well. That however, is a subject for another day).

Original Programming will discuss this new era of TV and pay tribute to it by delving into trends, discussing the types of programs that are emerging, analyzing how we are interacting with TV (as well as talking about some fun stuff) and pondering the fate of this golden age of TV. This is not a blog for episode recaps and show reviews though.

It’s written by two guys who love TV from Cincinnati, Ohio who have known each other for 30 years and somehow both married Texas girls then ended up in Austin, Texas.

We’ve never done anything like this before, but we love TV and promise to try to keep things interesting by talking about topics like Battlestar Galactica's continued struggle for relevance, the remarkable transformation of Netflix, integrating TV shows and video games, importing programming from overseas and more.

We invite you to join us, let us know what you think of what we write and share your suggestions.