Of course, because I could ever pick only one. Actually, I really can't. I mean, there's my favourite show I could watch over and over, that got me through university, my favourite show that hurled my emotions around for years, but in the end
Part One: It Got Me Through University
Stargate SG-1!
This baby got me through some extraordinarily tough times during university, during my first real job, and during the epic whirlwind that has been my life for the past 6 years.
I came to this show on a Saturday night, and my first episode was Nemesis. This explains my inexplicable love for Thor, my "Dude, the internet was right, the blonde lady and the older guy *do* have chemistry," and my actual love of Replicators as an enemy. No, really.
Lucky for me, the next weekend was Easter weekend, and Space was having a Viewer's Choice Good Friday SG-1 Marathon. I quite literally parked myself in front of the TV in the living room for 10 hours. Or tried to, but my mom wanted to vacuum, and I had to switch rooms. That day introduced me to such fine episodes as Divide & Conquer, Window of Opportunity, Small Victories, and 2010, leading me to believe that Space's "viewers" at the time were made up entirely of Sam/Jack 'shippers.
I've laughed, I've cried, I've dropped an entire plate of dinner onto the floor because Sam and Jack were making eyes at each other, and I've scared half of the residence hall I lived in in 2005 into never talking to me again, entirely due to my loud reactions the day I watched Threads.
Although I like Cam and Vala, I never really got behind Seasons 9 and 10, and to this day, I could not tell you how the whole Ori thing ever ended.
For me, the show ended the day they gave it an end - Moebius.
Part Two: Emotion-Hurly, But Ultimately Got Me Into Fandom
CSI!
CSI started off as a show my parents watched. The first episode I ever watched, Scuba Doobie-Doo, had bugs in it, and I was squeamish about such things at the time, so asked my mom to change the channel. She didn't. And that's how I watched CSI for 7 seasons, learned to eat dinner while watching grody death bits, cried, cried more, discovered friends on the internet, cried, practiced my terrible Grissomlike one-liners, and screamed so loud at the end of Season 6, that there are likely people who were also staying at that hotel in Colorado Springs that May, that could still tell you about that loon 4 rooms over with the TV and the screaming at the end of CSI.
Part Three: My Warm Blanket
[I could *not* for the life of me, find a good picture. I nearly went with an actual red dwarf star, when I decided that if you really wanted to see them, you could look them up.]
Red Dwarf!
Not the epitome of top-notch science-fiction, not the most top-notch of actors, and a lot of its humour is lost on people who didn't grow up watching British TV, whether via BBC, or your local public television affiliate. That said, I can quote 7 of the 8 series backwards and forwards, I *still* laugh at jokes I've laughed at hundreds of times, and it's a show with no angst, that I can watch when I've had a bad day. Win.
