The 'Doctor' is in

For anyone who hasn't figured it out yet, I am a little bit of a TV and movie addict. It's not really my fault, I swear. I blame it on graduate school - and my mom. For Christmas during my first year of school, she gave me a Tivo and a subscription to the digital recording technology. I started watching way too much TV to avoid the things I should really be doing - like working on my thesis project or editing video for my broadcast class or reading the newspaper for my current events quizzes.

My friend and I had all night classes the second semester so the Tivo made it easy to watch all the shows we liked such as "The Simpsons," or "The O.C." or "Grey's Anatomy." Tivo is the main reason I started watching "Law and Order: SVU." I could tape half a dozen reruns on the USA channel and then have them for middays when I got tired of working on my assignments.

When I finished school and got a real 9-5 job again Tivo made it easy to watch shows that were on at anytime. I could tape Food Network shows during the day or the Oprah Show. I used to never watch anything that came on after 9 p.m. - I like to read before I go to sleep and occasionally I actually get up at 5 a.m. to go to the gym - but now plenty late-night shows are part of my viewing schedule. And best of all, I never, ever watch commercials.

More recently my family added a Roku player to our list of tech TV gadgets. The Roku player is a little box you plug into the TV and connect to the wireless network that allows users to instantly play movies from Netflix or rent movies from Amazon.com. Not all DVDs on Netflix are available for instant play, but there is a decent selection. The quality depends on the speed of the Internet so this option is probably best for those with high-speed connections.

After finishing off BBC America's "Being Human" in one weekend - it was only six episodes long - I decided to try out "Dr. Who." Another of my BBC America favorites, "Torchwood" was a spin off of "Dr. Who." I've only watched the first episode of the 2005 version - the original started in 1963 - and so far it has the same funny, but sarcastic edge as "Torchwood."

The show stars David Tennant as Dr. Who, a man who can travel through time and space. In the pilot, he saves Rose (Billie Piper) from a pack of moving mannequins. Some American TV watchers may know Piper from "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," which I've never seen. I know Piper from "Top of the Pops" because she had a hit song out while I was in Ireland 10 years ago and the guy I had a crush on watched the show just to ogle her.

I have to watch a few more episodes before I can make a definitive decision about the show, but I've already got three seaons waiting in the queue on the Roku player!