Just as it's unfair to review a taco stand for not being a four-star restaurant, I also have to be mindful that not every drama on TV is trying to be "The Wire."

In fact, when it comes to TV, I'm not even sure what my real, true preferences are.

I think the occasional appearance of the UFO is a very oblique pop-cultural reference that anyone who was alive and sentient in the late 1970s will get right away.

I've loved the "Star Wars" movies for the ride and pure fun and found that it just didn't stand up when asked for more, particularly when it comes to back stories, prequels, spin-offs, encyclopedic scope, etc.

My first few years as TV critic, I would go to parties and people (usually older Posties or ex-Posties who seemed to pride themselves on not watching very much television) would take me by the arm and insist that I watch this show they'd recently starting watching on DVD, about drug dealers in Baltimore.

We got Arbitron diaries at my house in the 1980s, when the family was down to just my mother and me, and we tried for a couple of days to fill it out (I of course treated it like we'd been asked to write a new book of the Bible), but we got really bored with it and gave it up.

Whenever people ask me if it's okay to stop watching "The Leftovers," I always say OF COURSE IT IS.