What to Watch on a Saturday Night

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Remember the days when you and your loved one would think about plans for going out on a Saturday night?

Yeah, me neither.

I do remember being in my 20s and wondering why my married friends never wanted to do anything on the weekends. They lived such a boring life. How could they stand it?

I used to get restless in my one bedroom apartment. I couldn’t stay home. I had to get out, even if it was to go window shopping.

But when you get married, things change. You may still go out but it usually involves a nice dinner and maybe a movie. Gone are the days of group drinking binges and spending way too much at the local bar. That seems so… dirty and immature. Besides, you’ve got that one person you want to be with anyway. Why spoil it with a group of friends where you know at least ONE of them is going to get on your very last nerve?

And then dinner and a movie turns into dinner and let’s-go-home-early-and-snuggle-in-bed-and-watch-TV. Sounds idyllic. But that gives way to take out and eating in front of the TV. No make up or fancy clothes required.

Then kids come along and at first, it’s okay. You’re bleary-eyed from the late nights and middle of the night feedings and you lose all track of the shows you used to love to watch together. But the baby gets a little older, gets on a schedule, and after 7pm, you have your evenings free again. You decide this “having kids” thing isn’t so bad and start to feel like you’re getting your life back.

But if you’re me, that’s not the end of the story. It ends with your child getting older, not requiring much sleep, going to be usually no earlier than 10pm, and requiring mom or dad to lay down with him until he nods off. Which usually means mom or dad nods off too.

We lost not only our grown-up time but our time to watch TV together. So we got rid of TV.

Now hold on a second…

Before you freak out and think I’m one of those anti-television households, you are sorely wrong. We still possess three TVs in the house but when we moved, we chose not to get satellite or cable TV. Just to see how we’d do. And we didn’t really miss it that much.

Instead, we spend our time on our Apple TV or Roku watching mostly streaming shows. While we have subscriptions to Hulu+ and Amazon Prime to cover a lot of our TV and movie viewing needs, we’re mostly spending our time on Netflix.

During the day, our six year old falls into marathon viewing for Phineas & Ferb, Good Luck Charlie, Jessie, Power Rangers, Justice League, and Johnny Test (I hate that one).

When it’s bedtime, we still have to overcome our own fatigue but that’s when we try to get back to our viewing schedule. We watch TV more consciously now and make specific choices about the shows we choose.

My husband sometimes watches alone and I see that he’s seen The Hunger Games or Top Gear or Doctor Who.

When I’m alone, I’m known to watch Everest, Kitchen Nightmares, or my new favorite show, House of Cards, a Netflix original series.

Together we all recently watched The Avengers (I tweeted while I watched the whole thing. HULK SMASH!) but I’m looking for a new movie or show for me and my husband. We need a show that can be “our show.” We watched Downton Abbey and Under the Dome. But we need something new.

I was going to try Breaking Bad but he’s not interested. And I’m wondering if Orange is the New Black is all it’s cracked up to be (and if he’ll watch it).

If you have a Saturday (or other night) show that you stream on with your significant other, let me know. I could use some good recommendations.

I am part of the Netflix Stream Team and have received an Apple TV as well as a year’s subscription to Netflix. Even though I already had Apple TV and subscribed to Netflix, I did it anyway because I love the service. All opinions here are my own.