Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

So let's start this column first with a confession that yes, I am a TV junkie. I was so excited to get our first DVR when we were in Basin because working so many nights I was missing some of my favorite shows.

Now I never have to miss a favorite show.

One feature of our satellite company is that we can set it to record all the primetime shows on the main four networks. For a TV junkie like myself this is great. Especially when new shows debut as it gives me a chance to check them out.

Now anyone who reads this space on a regular basis, knows I have a love/hate relationship with America's Got Talent in the summer. I don't watch any of the other entertainment reality shows - American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, The Voice, Dancing With the Stars - they have no interest for me.

For the most part my favorite genre is crime dramas. I used to watch all the CSI shows; I do watch Criminal Minds, Law and Order: SVU, and NCIS to name a few.

But, I also love a good comedy. The first few seasons of Two and a Half Men were a hoot. I love the show Mom. Like most comedies it can have you rolling on the floor one episode, but crying in the next.

My latest obsession is Living Biblically on CBS. It started as a new spring show last month. The premise is a newspaper columnist (no that's not the only reason I like it) finds out he will be a father as his wife announces she is pregnant. He sets out to become a better person for his child and professes to follow the Bible 100 percent for the next nine months.

He enlists the aid of a rabbi and a priest - his God squad as he likes to call them.

I watched the show at first with some skepticism, wondering how CBS would be treating Christians in the show, as some networks like to bash Christianity, make Christians look like idiots, or in general get things totally wrong with Christianity.

But I think the developers and the writers are doing a great job. They are showing how difficult it is to live 100 percent by the Bible, mostly due to the many do's and don'ts in the Old Testament, especially Leviticus. In fact one of the first episodes dealt with how the father, Chip, was going to deal with his friend who was cheating on his wife. His God squad noted that in the Bible, adulterers were stoned but they wouldn't recommend that course of action. His resolution was hysterical – I leave it at that in case you decide to stream it later.

Chip has dealt with thou shalt not steal and what really constitutes stealing in a hilarious episode about borrowing (or is it stealing) office supplies. Another episode has dealt with lying (bearing false witness) and this week's episode was honoring they father and mother and how, yes, that does include your atheistic mother-in-law.

OK, I have to tell you how that one ends. His wife asks Chip to pray for her mother as she ended up in the hospital. They pray and the doctors bring her out and announce she will be fine. Chip's mother-in-law looks at him and says something to the affect "You prayed for me didn't you. And I had to be OK. You're never going to let me live this one down are you?"

Maybe you had to be there or maybe you have to have my weird sense of humor but the line and the scene cracked me up.

I like comedies because in today's world of fear-mongering commercials (almost every other commercial nowadays is a pharmaceutical commercial or a cancer commercial) and a world where the national news just seems to invoke fear, distrust and/or anger; laughter truly is the best medicine.

I can be having a stressful day and one good comedy makes it all go away (that and some time with the husband and snuggle time with the fur kids, of course).

So whether you enjoy a good TV show or not, make sure you take time out of your day to find something to make you laugh. You really only get one shot at this life, you might as well take the time to enjoy it - laugh a little, smile a little, live a lot.