I don’t watch much television these days. I don’t really have time for it, but most importantly I don’t usually have control over the programming my set offers.

So when the opportunity comes for me to be alone with the television and the remote, I am always disappointed that I can find nothing to watch. I don’t even know how many channels we get, but it’s a lot. Yet, there is “nothing” on TV.

I was talking with some ladies Saturday who were lamenting the same thing. . . hardly anything on television is worth watching.

I agreed, but had no real ideas about the situation. . .until today. A very real reason for this problem dawned on me. So many of today’s shows are series, the kind where I feel I cannot just jump in and watch one episode. There are certainly dramas that fit into that category, but also the more lighthearted fare-reality shows. It is pretty hard to watch just one episode of Survivor or The Amazing Race and have a real sense of who to like or root for.

Where are the Seinfelds? The Friends? The faithful standbys of the not so distant television past?

I am no television executive. The “powers that be” probably have very good reasons for the seeming absence of such good, one episode, feel-good fare. (I think it has a lot to do with production cost.)

So while there don’t seem to be many current shows that fit my sitcom craving, I guess I’ll continue to turn to a couple of my all-time favorites-Seinfeld and The Andy Griffith Show. Kramer and Ernest T. Bass are timeless, not to mention forever entertaining.