I do miss it so. It was a weekly ritual. With appetites growing every week. I fully bought in. I would watch with a hearty high calorie meal. A dark whiskey to wash it all down. Mad Men in my bachelor apartment is not just a show but more of an event. We are making a meatloaf – that’s 2 hours towards the cause right there. Viewing the elite TV blogs they would have it be known that Mad Men has been on the slide for the past few years. Not to me. No siree jim bob dixie. Although to be fair to those with that opinion, I have fully bought into the sizzle. The style, the babes, the casual decadence of constant liquor and nicotine is pretty much all I need. They are like a sports team. Am I going to boo or not follow my teams just because they lose or play boring? Nuh uh. Go Joan Go! Sally Draper (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap-clap). So it really doesn’t matter much to me if the scripts are trite. I’m pretty pumped for Sunday’s season premiere. There will be a meal with gravy, there will be booing and hissing when Pete comes on-screen, and there will be bawdy locker room wisecracks when the lovely (and perhaps talented) Christina Hendricks bounces about as only her and perhaps the dark-haired Broke Girl can.

Since Mad Men has been on hiatus, what has become of my Sundays? Sure, sports take up a good deal. I watch Fox’s Animation Domination line-up almost out of habit at this point and 60 minutes has been a staple since I was a youngster. I loved the gotcha/ambush Mike Wallace stuff. Shoving microphones in crook’s faces as they put their hand on the camera. These days I’m only into the Steve Croft stories. He is the best journalist in the world. Not partisan and while 60 minutes has had some issues as of late, it’s never on a Croft story. As the original cast since I was a pre-teen has died off, he is the constant and I wait as to who Steve Croft will give a solid head kicking to next.

But I find myself really getting pumped for a formulaic reality show. Bar Rescue is a paint by numbers reality show that highlights my Sabbath. It’s basically Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares but for bars that also serve food. John Taffer yells and curses people who run awful bars with terrible concepts. The bars are very unclean and there may be a possum living in the ceiling or black mould in the walk in freezer. I love delving into shows that I start watching and can hunt down the back story on which it is based. Taffer is not a very likeable star. He has an odd halting way of speaking. It seems his bully persona is a shtick and he’s actually a nerdy marketing, math guy. But he is believed to be the innovator of NFL Sunday Ticket, the premium sports package that allows you to watch football games outside of your region. So he yells at the bar staff and the owner has usually suffered some set back either having violent flu, being in a crash, death of a loved one and on and on. Then Taffer tries to train the bumbling staff who wouldn’t know a mojito from a birch bark canoe. Slowly but surely the staff catch on, the kitchen gets clean, and the décor is spruced up. The last ten minutes sees the new and improved establishment pluckily make its way through a decent showing and Taffer goes off like the Littlest Hobo to get into another adventure the next week.

I can’t break down why I really like this show. I love Dragon’s Den and Pawns Stars because of the haggle; wrestling because of the childhood loyalty, violence and smack talk; Mad Men because of the subtle dialogue and bosoms – but Bar Rescue is for some reason my Sunday go-to. It has great re-watchability. I’ve seen every episode at least twice. Is it just that it is mindless drivel and it washes over me? But I’ve never watched an entire Big Bang Theory and I have only seen one full CSI. I guess I just like belligerence. Myself, I am very non-confrontational. I’ll let you win an argument – not out of intellectual weakness just out of an affront to the concept of argument itself. So some bluster mixed in with a show promoting alcohol is the key. Mad Men’s return means I will have to rest Bar Rescue. Another one of its benefits is that it’s always on. There are several hour-long marathons several times week. They only thing lacking are buxom red heads, adultery, and slogans for baked beans.

Raphael Saray is heavily involved in Project Chaos, which should not be mentioned out loud.