Things To Do For Two

Cost – Ranges from FREE to $50 depending if you rent, buy, or go to the library.

If you’re short on money, time, or both, watching your favourite TV shows on DVD can be a fun way to spend time with another person. Since the initial purchase price may seem steep, you can always rent a disc at a time from Netflix, Zip, or Blockbuster.

HE SAID:

I remember when TV shows first started being released on DVD. I could not understand why someone would buy such a thing. Then I was introduced to a little show called 24 and everything changed. We burned through the first four seasons of 24 embarrassingly quickly so that we could be caught up when the fifth season aired that year.

Since then, we have acquired a healthy collection of our favourite shows on DVD. We have the first five seasons of 24, every season so far of The Office, a few seasons of How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, and our current work in progress — the cherry on top of our TV collection sunday — the entire series of Full House.

There are two major benefits to owning your favourite TV shows. The first is that I find most shows much more enjoyable simply because of the lack of commercials. Especially for a show like 24 where the suspense and action are what make it exciting, the commercials can really let the air out of a fun episode. The other benefit is that the episodes are short. Even shows that are an hour long when they air with commercials are only about 45 minutes without them. So if you are a busy person and rarely have time to sit down and watch a two hour movie, a (roughly) 22 minute episode of your favourite show is much more manageable.

If you don’t like the idea of having to buy a season of a TV show, you can always rent instead. We use a service called Zip. So far we have only rented movies from them, but they have the option to rent TV shows. The best part is you can keep each disc as long as you want so there is no rush to speed through the shows, plus if you end up not loving the show, you won’t feel like you wasted $40 on something you’ll never watch again.

The key to TV dates is to make sure they don’t replace activities where we interact with each other a little more. It’s true that we watch our favourite shows while eating dinner instead of sitting at the table, but that will change when kids come along. We make sure to spend enough quality time together that it isn’t a replacement for that quality time. We have a lot of fun going through shows and finding favourite episodes to watch again later.

For a fun challenge, see how quickly you can get through a season of your favourite show. Something I’ve always wanted to do is watch an entire season of 24 in one day, since the premise of the show is that it spans a 24 hour period.

Buying or renting your favourite shows is a great option for anyone who wants to save money. Instead of paying a big monthly fee for cable or satellite, get the shows you really love on DVD.

SHE SAID:

As a kid, I never understood why all of the new episodes of my favourite TV shows were on during the school year when homework always competed with free time. On the other hand, reruns dominated the screen when I had copious amounts of time to waste in front of the boob tube during summer break. Thanks to the magic of DVD’s that problem no longer exists.

Now, instead of trying to follow all of our favourite TV shows as they change time slots and compete with day-to-day life, it’s not as big a deal when we miss one. If it’s a show we both love, we just buy the complete season and watch it at our leisure, as quickly or as slowly as we like.

When we bought our first season of The Office to watch over the summer, I wondered if we would ever watch it again. I thought perhaps we had just wasted some money. I was so wrong. Not only did we watch it again, but we now watch an episode every night with our supper. Yes, we eat supper in front of the TV. No, our relationship is not doomed because of it.

I ended up liking this idea so much that I went out on a limb and bought a random TV show for Brad for Christmas last year called Mad Men. We finished the first season in a month and its second season is a good contender for our summer picks.

I really love scouting out new and old TV shows to watch throughout the summer when the airwaves become a little stagnant. It’s a fun little tradition we have going that takes away the summer TV blahs.

We’re always looking for a new series to start watching, so now it’s your turn to tell us what your favourite shows are to watch on DVD. What’s the fastest you’ve ever gone through a whole season? Let us know in the comments!

–UPDATE —

So, we made a glaring oversight when we posted this date idea today. While browsing our local library tonight we happened across the second season of Mad Men on DVD. Of course, how could we have forgotten about the library?? So if you want to save money, don’t rent or buy your favourite show, head to the library and see what’s available.