Finally, missing the TV

In general, we've been getting along fine without the boob tube. We'd already stopped watching LOST, and Masterpiece Theater wasn't showing anything interesting. We'd canceled the cable a while before the TV bit it. We never watched the news. If we have a yen to see a movie, we can either pop a DVD in the computer or watch videos upstairs on the little screen with the built-in VCR.

But now, now I'm wishing we had TV access. Masterpiece Theater has, at last, shaken off its lethargy and is broadcasting The Complete Jane Austen, starting tomorrow. All six novels dramatized, four in new productions. A movie about Jane's life (perhaps more critically successful than last year's Becoming Jane). And I'm going to miss it all.

Recently I re-read Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and had a great desire to see the Alfred Hitchcock movie, which won Best Picture in 1940. Netflix, usually such a useful resource in these cases, unhelpfully listed the DVD's availability as "unknown". Does that mean that they don't have it in stock? That there's only one copy being passed around the myriad Netflix subscribers and my turn isn't until 2010? Blockbuster doesn't carry Rebecca locally; nor does Hollywood Video. My public library doesn't list it in their catalog. To buy a new DVD on Amazon would run me about $90, though I could get a used VHS for much less. And for all this, a search at Turner Classic Movies reveals that they'll be showing Rebecca on Feb. 5 -- and I don't have a TV.

These are miniscule problems compared to homelessness or Peace In Our Time (or the cost of a new flat panel), but I would dearly love to spend a month of Sundays curled up in front of the TV watching the new Jane Austens or some good Hitchcock. Score one for the boob tube.