The good, the bad and the downright ridiculous

It's been said that my taste in all things audiovisual is "eclectic" (read: bleedin' mental). I can sit still at a symphony or mosh with the best of them, I appreciate Jane Austen and Kazuo Ishiguro equally, and I can see the value in chick flicks, action flicks, arty flicks and the ones with the subtitles. When it comes to TV, though, I'm firmly at the soapy end of the scale in terms of my viewing preferences. Although I do appreciate "good" comedy like Scrubs and Seinfeld and The Office (UK version please) and have occasionally been known to watch Panorama, Newsnight and the Culture Show, truth be told, my ideal evening in front of the goggle box would involve one or all of the following:

1. The OC. I am a relatively late convert to the OC bandwagon but am now furiously making up for lost time. I'd never really gotten into it here due to the vagaries of Dutch TV scheduling, but a few all-day marathons on E4 at home over Christmas got me well and truly hooked. And oh, joy of joys, I returned here in January to find it on not one, but two channels - one showing series 1 every night at 6.30 (perfect gym viewing!) and another showing the most recent episodes (further ahead than home!) on Sunday afternoons. I am now engrossed in the implausibly glamorous and verbose lives of Seth, Summer, Ryan et al. And yes, Marissa bugs the hell out of me too.

2. Gilmore Girls. I have only Dutch TV scheduling to blame for this one. It's on every Tuesday at 8.30 and my evening now completely revolves around it - I have a set ritual involving a large pot of tea, stretchy sweat pants, an oversized hoodie, big fluffy socks and a bar of Albert Heijn chocolate (I've said this before and I'll say it again... it's DELICIOUS). I have also had a viewing companion of late in the form of Oran, who will never openly admit that he likes watching, but still giggles every time Michel and Kirk are on screen. Plus, he has the hots for Lorelai. We are now four episodes into season six but I am ashamed to admit that I've already seen up to episode ten thanks to BitTorrent. Does anyone else wish Luke and Lorelai would just grow the hell up?

3. Desperate Housewives. This was must-see TV for me when it started here (Tuesday evening GG and DH double whammy!) but it was starting to wear on me a teeny tiny bit by the time it was mysteriously pulled from Net5's schedule. That said, I'll be glued to it again whenever it returns, if only to find out if Susan Mayer ever cops on.

4. Grey's Anatomy. This may be slightly less soapy and more highbrow than the previous three shows, but it's on after GG now instead of DH so of course, I've become hooked. I'm far more interested in the Meredith/McDreamy storyline than any of the medical gunk, and so far, so engrossing, although Izzie is fast becoming my favourite character.

5. Any Australian soap opera (Neighbours/Home & Away). These are more early evening viewing and I only have my mother and sisters to blame for my continuing recreational use of both. I rarely watch full episodes of either, and hadn't seen the latter for ages until Christmas, but I can always pick up on exactly what's going on after about thirty seconds. Pretty much an essential requirement for any good soap, non?

I'm pretty sure that Dutch TV has largely been to blame for my stunted televisual growth. But given that I spent hours on end over Christmas flicking through the 567824 music channels now on Sky, I'm thinking it could be so much worse...