My guilty pleasure: popular television shows.

I know, I know. I’m supposed to only like obscure scifi. (I do, really! Lexx is great fun!) Or say in a haughty voice that “I don’t really watch television–I prefer radio as a medium.” (”Of course, I get all my news from NPR. Did you catch yesterday’s This American Life?”) Maybe I should maintain that the best show on television is the Wire. (Well, I’ve seen a few episodes with my roommate. It’s not bad.)

Yet I can’t help falling into those all-too-popular traps. Mostly this happens on vacations, when I actually have the time to watch television, or indeed do anything but read Latin and write papers and go to rehearsal and the myriad of other necessities at school. Last year during winter break, I watched the entire first season of Lost at TV Links, back when it was working. This past winter, I did the same thing with Heroes. And now that I’m out of school for the summer and have free time again, I’ve fallen back into the second season of Heroes, and the rest of Lost is waiting in the wings.

Now, don’t let my tone fool you. I’m not about to say “But I only like them ironically” or anything of that ilk. Someone (I can’t remember who, unfortunately) once wrote an invective against claiming to like something because “it’s so bad it’s good.” If you like it, said this person, then just say it’s good! Don’t be embarrassed and try to over it up!

In that line, I really truly like these shows, no matter what people say. They’re engaging, and fantastical, and have all sorts of different fun plot lines (too many, if the critics are to be believed). Some of my like for these shows probably comes from A. my very clear love for scifi, and B. my secret attraction to conspiracy theories and secret societies and such things. Yes, I certainly did take that book out of the library and read about the Thugs and the Freemasons and the Illuminati before I got to the KKK and got bored of it. Oh yes, I suspect that there are all sorts of secret plots behind things. In fact, this item B is probably responsible for item A. All the “real world” scifi–Stargate, X-Files, etc.–tend to have some elements of the conspiracy theory in them.

And apparently I’m not alone in this interest, given the popularity of these shows. So when the plots of Lost get ever crazier and more all-encompassing and the people pulling the strings get more puppeteer-like, it’s great to watch. When we watch Heroes and get hints of the group of specials running things behind the scenes, we love it.

Are these shows great television? Do they have any larger value? Do they address any of the fundamental questions of humanity? I don’t know. Maybe. That’s something that will be collectively decided once they’ve finished their run and we can look back at them. But they’re certainly damn entertaining, and for that, producers of Lost and Heroes, I doff my hat to you. Even if writers’ meetings do actually look like this.