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How Up All Night Is Like Real Life: TV Cheaters Never Prosper

Ever since Up All Night's pilot, my wife and I have wondered whether the writers have installed a camera in our place to gather material -- there's at least one moment every episode where the show captures something that happens in our life as perpetually tired parents of two young kids.

The specific bit of verisimilitude on last night's "Rivals" that had us laughing and nodding knowingly was the bit of business involving Reagan and Chris trying to sync up their schedules so they can be together to watch the finale of their favorite show: Friday Night Lights. Now, FNL was never a shared favorite in our home (I loved it, but my wife never got into it -- maybe we'll try again in a few years when the kids are older), but we've always had series that could only be viewed together, ranging from Buffy to Angel to Mad Men. No matter how much we're individually dying to watch the latest episode, we'll wait until we're both home and awake, even if it means holding out for a whole week.

But there was one occasion where, like Chris and Laura, I TV-cheated on my spouse. At the time, our current must-see series was the revamp of Battlestar Galactica and I had received a screener of the mid-Season 4 premiere. I knew I should have saved it until I got home that evening, but after that cliffhanger that ended the first half of the season -- where the crew of the Galactica at last arrived on Earth only to discover an apocalyptic wasteland -- I just couldn't wait to find out what happened next. So I popped the screener in and watched the whole thing at my desk. Unlike Chris though, I didn't try to hide my indiscretion. And while my wife wasn't thrilled to be left out of that initial viewing, she gave me a one-time pass under the circumstances. I managed to get through the rest of the day without spoiling a single detail for her and when I got home that night, we watched the episode together as usual. And you know what? That second viewing was much, much more satisfying than the first.

Ever TV-cheated on your S.O.? Share all the gory details in the comments below.

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7 Comments

January 20, 2012 12:18 PM
Chrissy
Reply

Tv cheating was such a good plot line, I think many people can relate to that experience. I can totally see how impossible it would to be wait to watch BSG!

January 20, 2012 12:45 PM
Daniel
Reply

It was such a cute stoyline. I fint that my coupled friends with kids can really relate to this show. Like Christina Applegate's last show, "Samantha Who?", I find this show to be so underrated. It's always so consistantly funny. And Applegate is such a natural comedienne.

January 20, 2012 1:42 PM
Lindsay
Reply

My husband and I were catching up on Lost on DVD but I had gone and read all the Lost recaps through the rest of the season on TWoP before we watched them together. Does that count?

January 20, 2012 1:42 PM
Lindsay
Reply

My husband and I were catching up on Lost on DVD but I had gone and read all the Lost recaps through the rest of the season on TWoP before we watched them together. Does that count?

January 20, 2012 2:39 PM
Erin
Reply

I did the same thing with Lost! He would work nights late and I had Netflix instant streaming and I kept just needing to watch just one more. We eventually caught up for the series finally but there are whole seasons I think I left him behind

January 20, 2012 2:39 PM
Erin
Reply

I did the same thing with Lost! He would work nights late and I had Netflix instant streaming and I kept just needing to watch just one more. We eventually caught up for the series finally but there are whole seasons I think I left him behind

January 22, 2012 2:44 PM
jbj
Reply

I had a boyfriend during college with whom watching Highlander: The Series together, or over the phone, was a ritual, as it was the only sci-fi/fantasy series we had in common. I eventually break-up with him, but agree to still be friends. A month later, he's visiting me at school, and after an entire day of me not holding his hand when we went out and playing Fleetwood Mac music in my dorm room, he finally broke down in tears and realized that we were really over because I told him I didn't want to watch some Highlander repeat with him. The show was never the same for me after that, and I still can't really watch the reruns.

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