That's entertainment!

Want to know what's hot on TV these days? Well, don't ask me. I only get a handful of stations, and I seldom watch television anyway. I do watch some shows on Hulu, but what I like tends to get canceled very quickly. In fact, usually I don't even discover a show until after it's already been canceled.

For example, it took me years to discover Firefly. Is there anyone these days who's not familiar with this space western that ran for all of one season almost eight years ago? Well, if I wasn't the very last person to discover this show, it is available on Hulu, though not the whole season at once. There are only five complete episodes available at a time, with a new episode added every Monday, apparently.

I was a little quicker with The Unusuals, a cop show that ran last spring. Despite the terrible title, it was pretty good. It had some quirky characters and plenty of humor. Well, I thought it was lots of fun, but I guess I was the only one. (Sure, it's not Cop Rock, but what is?) All ten episodes are freely available on Hulu.

I hear that they've canceled the office comedy, Better Off Ted, too. That's a shame. I thought it was very funny. It did last for two seasons, but right now, they're only showing five episodes at a time on Hulu. Check it out if you want a clever comedy, sort of in the style of Arrested Development.

Another show I didn't discover until years later is Dead Like Me. It's a fantasy, and plenty weird - but that's its appeal. I wasn't sure of it at first, but I guess it grew on me. Both seasons - all 29 episodes - are available at Hulu.

Should I mention the really old stuff, like McHale's Navy?  135 episodes should keep you going awhile, don't you think? It's still funny, too, though not nearly as funny as I remembered. On the other hand, Barney Miller and WKRP in Cincinnati are still just as funny as I'd remembered. Of course, they're not nearly as old, either.

Really, I don't want much TV, even online. But there are times when you just want to vegetate. As an occasional thing, that's fine. It's only when we adopt the couch potato lifestyle that it becomes a problem.

I keep hearing that the free model for this stuff won't last, that companies are determined to make Internet users pay. Maybe so. I guess we'll see. But meanwhile, Hulu is a pretty neat place (even after Comedy Central removed The Daily Show and The Colbert Report). And most TV programming remains a vast wasteland, so it's hard to find something I can watch in real-time.