A blog sister whose politics and worldview are on a par with mine recently told me that she didn’t like television shows like 24, and it set me to thinking —

I’m not a T.V. person at all, even though I own high definition sets ranging from 37″ to 62″, and subscribe to DirecTV. I watch the movie channels and the news channels, C-Span, etc.

There are four shows I’ve watched faithfully, two being Sleeper Cell and The Shield. The other two are La Femme Nikita and 24. All of these programs follow a serialized format, one episode leading into the next, and I’ve learned one fact — they’re difficult to follow between the lengthy commercial breaks and the week’s distance between episodes.

Where 24 and LaFemme Nikita are concerned, I found the best way to watch them and keep up without losing either perspective or interest: rent them by the season from Netflix and watch the episodes in commercial-free order.

It works.

My favorite television characters are Nikita, Jack Bauer and Vic Mackey. The latter two are very similar to one another, except that Vic is corrupt while Jack is a single minded patriot whose life and all personal considerations, to him, are secondary to his job at the Counter-Terrorist Unit. When you watch one in certain situations, you think of the other — their expressions are even the same. But you can follow the story lines and the characters much better if you watch the episodes in order and in multi-episode viewings.

Sleeper Cell, a Showtime series, is great where T.V. is concerned. I highly recommend it to viewers who are into the gender of T.V. that deals with terrorism, homeland security and the technical details of both, served up in realistic fashion.

And that’s my relationship with the boob tube.