I may have told you...last year, I was a Neilsen family, for 6 whole weeks, and I have the Five Dollar Bill to prove it! But this year, since they aren't asking for my opinions, you get them.

These are the top ten shows on broadcast television this past week, the last full week of the sweeps period. Notice anything? They are all 1 hour shows, every last one of them. There isn’t a sitcom in the bunch, only one VERY successful dramedy and a bunch of dramas. Notice something else? Crime-related drama: 6 out of 10; Medical-related drama: 4 out of 10; tropical setting drama: 2 out of 10; suburban dramedy, 1 out of 10; shows where graphic violence, or its results, are common: 8 out of 10 (and the other two, DH and S:G, have had their share).

1. Desperate Housewives, ABC
2. CSI, CBS
3. Grey's Anatomy, ABC
4. Survivor: Guatemala, CBS
5. Without a Trace, CBS
6. Cold Case, CBS
7. CSI: Miami, CBS
8. Lost, ABC
9. Law & Order: SVU, NBC
10. NCIS, CBS

I don’t watch any of these shows. I saw about 4 or 5 episodes of Desperate Housewives in repeats this summer (I have chorus rehearsal on Sunday nights most of the year), none of CSI in the last two years, some SVU in repeats on cable, but I’ve never even seen one episode of the rest of these shows…and have no desire to. I know that not wanting to see “Lost” and not being caught up in the “Desperate Housewives” phenom means yet again that Elton and Ellen will be coming to take away my toaster oven soon, but I just don’t have the time or the desire…and I certainly am sick to death of shows that are about death, disease, illness, survivalist competition for money, and humanity’s propensity for inhumanity.

What have I watched this year: “Medium” on NBC (I know, it's a crime show and violent but it's so freaky cool!), Lifetime sitcoms, BBC America, Bravo, the Food Network, and the following series on Showtime: Dead Like Me, Weed, and Queer as Folk. At night, I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report, and then dvds of Friends, the Simpsons, Will & Grace, or the Vicar of Dibley as I nod off.

Is it official? Have I become hopeless unhip?

I've been pondering...Why do people watch these shows?

Maybe, in a world where increasingly there are no easy answers, all of these shows (except Desperate Housewives and Lost) feed a desire for a life where there are definite answers to life's questions: "do anything it takes" and win on Survivor, and "use your brain and technology and find the answer" and be a hero on all the cop and forensic shows. Perhaps then Lost, which I understand is about people trying to figure out why their plane crashed and what the heck is going on on that island, is really a metaphor for modern life--the quest for answers that don't come...and Desperate Housewives is the post-modern approach to that dilemma--turn everything into a chance for ironic, and even cruel, humor.

Or I could be completely full of it and really need a big margarita and a few good dates.

I'll save my rant about NEWS during sweeps for another time...SCANDAL!!!!! SEX!!!!!! HOMOS!!!!!! SEX OFFENDERS!!!!! DRUGS!!!!! CRIME!!!!! FEAR!!!!!