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8 ways to watch TV better in 2017

T he best New Year's resolutions are the ones we can keep. So while we're pursuing health, wealth, and happiness, it never hurts to add a few goals that don't involve giving up anything we enjoy - including the TV remote.

Justina Machado and Todd Grinnell in "One Day at a Time."
Justina Machado and Todd Grinnell in "One Day at a Time."Read moreMichael Yarish / Netflix / TNS

The best New Year's resolutions are the ones we can keep. So while we're pursuing health, wealth, and happiness, it never hurts to add a few goals that don't involve giving up anything we enjoy - including the TV remote.

This year, let's together resolve to:

Take awards, and awards shows, less seriously. We can start on Sunday with the Golden Globes, whose NBC telecast, hosted this year by the Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon, is probably the only awards show in which the people choosing the winners get made fun of, sometimes even by the winners themselves.

The eccentric Hollywood Foreign Press Association is an easy target, but it knows how to throw the kind of party where anything might happen (even if it's been far too many years since Renée Zellweger and Christine Lahti each had to be fetched from the bathroom to accept their Globes).

And though most of the group's members may be no more qualified than viewers and moviegoers to judge TV and film awards, they're as likely as anyone, including Emmy and Oscar voters, to nominate good work.

Because there's a lot of good work, particularly in television.

With 455 scripted series on cable, broadcast, and streaming platforms for 2016 - according to the industry's latest count, by the cable network FX - the awards competition is greater than it's ever been.

So let's make 2017 the year we stop worrying so much about who got "snubbed" or "robbed," and remember that The Wire, one of the best TV dramas of all time, never won an Emmy or a Golden Globe.

Stop zapping the commercials. I'm not saying anyone has to watch all of them (though one way or another, we eventually get what we pay for).

But as studies continue to show that sitting for long periods increases our odds of dying early, I'm hoping to use commercial breaks, live or recorded, as a reminder to get up and walk around.

I just need to figure out a route that doesn't include the refrigerator.

Put the DVR on a diet. I don't know about you, but mine runneth over with episodes I'll probably never watch.

Shifting time isn't the same as making time. So, although it's great not having to follow someone else's schedule, we (or at least I) need to be more realistic about whether what's recorded will ever be watched.

Stop worrying so much about spoilers. If we learned anything from FX's The People v. O.J. Simpson, it's that knowing how a story turns out doesn't have to ruin anything.

If we really can't abide knowing ahead of time that [Beloved Character] had [Something Upsetting/Wonderful/Almost Certainly Fatal] happen to them in the final 30 seconds of [Show That Everyone's Talking About], we'll just have to hope that whatever in our lives took precedence over TV was even more interesting.

Or hang out, online and in real life, only with people who don't watch television.

Let go of a show (or shows). Is there something you used to watch closely that's now become background noise? After several seasons, can you now see every twist and turn coming? Or has the plotting become so complicated you couldn't begin to explain it to a friend who doesn't watch?

Topping my own list of shows most likely to get tossed: ABC's How to Get Away with Murder. Not even Viola Davis (and an occasional glimpse of Philadelphia City Hall) should be strong enough to lure me back when the ever-more-convoluted legal drama returns Jan. 19.

Try something new, even if it's new only to you. This is in my job description, of course, but if you have a suggestion, I'd love to hear it.

TV critics may push shows like FX's The Americans and the CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend like we're working on commission, but, honestly, we're just looking for more people to talk with about television we love.

Joining shows in progress has gotten easier now that so many series' past seasons are on Amazon, Netflix, or Hulu. So why not make your next binge a critical darling?

And don't be a snob about broadcast TV. One Day at a Time, the pretty good reimagining of the 1970s-'80s Norman Lear sitcom that premieres on Netflix on Friday, isn't special because it's on Netflix. (If that was all it took, Fuller House would be much better than it is.)

The remake features three generations of a Cuban American family and stars Justina Machado and Rita Moreno. It's a comedy with a studio audience - which goes a little crazy every time Moreno enters - and it stands out for the same reasons a show like CBS's The Big Bang Theory does: writing, acting, chemistry.

Cable and streaming services didn't give us Speechless, Black-ish, and The Goldbergs. ABC did.

And for all the hype surrounding Netflix's House of Cards, CBS's Madam Secretary most weeks is a more engaging inside-the-Beltway show.

Keep up the conversation. Television worth watching is worth talking about. In 2016, I heard from readers who'd gotten as hooked on Scandinavian TV as I had, who were annoyed that their favorite shows weren't nominated for Emmys, and who just wanted to talk more about some of the people and shows I'd written about.

Some had cut the cord on cable and were getting their TV over the internet; others were still trying to figure out how Netflix and Amazon worked.

I learned a lot. I hope - in fact, I resolve - to learn more in 2017.

graye@phillynews.com

215-854-5950@elgray

EllenGray.TV