Working The Late Shift? This Is The Guide To Type Of TV You Should Watch Late At Night

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So imagine the scene. It's 10:40pm on a weekday. I've returned home from having done the afternoon/evening shift at work. Say hello to wife. She chats about her day. Call my mother to see she's OK. She chats about her day. A few days later they will both accuse me of not listening to them. They'd be right. I'm tired but also hungry. At about midnight I'll be asleep.

But between the above, plus checking daughter is (hopefully) asleep, going to the toilet, changing clothes, saying goodnight to the wife, pinging something on the microwave whilst throwing some cold meat onto it to give the meal some oomph, saying goodnight to the wife there will be about a window of an hour whilst I eat and let the food settle before it's time for me to go to bed.

Time then to watch TV. But it's not easy. Whilst that hour draws on the danger of nodding off increases. Which is why the choice of programme is important.

This therefore is the guide to the type of programme you should or shouldn't watch (I'm assuming here that they're recorded so you can fast forward the commercials) or on demand like Netflix

1) Nothing less forty minutes: The programme might be fine but if it's less than forty minutes you'll probably want to watch a second. That's the one you'll probably fall asleep on.

2) Nothing More Than Fifty Minutes: As midnight approaches you're more in danger of sleeping in front of the TV. So you'll eventually wake up and find you've missed something important. Thus having to go through it all over again. Trust me that's not a good feeling.

3) Not new: The time you'll get to watch TV is limited. As you'll be watching something on catch-up best go for something the rest of the nation hasn't watched before you or else a spoiler will pass through someone's lips to your ears before the rest of you has actually seen it. Best for something on a more obscure channel showing repeats of a series you didn't watch years ago.

4) Nothing Intellectual: Your brain is telling you it wants to relax.

5) Nothing Simple: What do you think I am? Thick?

6) Nothing distressing: Whilst I don't believe in wrapping myself round in cotton wool to avoid the world's problems this is neither the time or the place. Law and Order SVU should be for another day.

7) Watch a series not a serial: For exactly the same reasons as rule 2. Serials have their bombshell moments towards the end, when you're at the greatest risk of falling asleep.

So what example is their currently of a TV series that falls within all these perimeters. I give you Body of Proof. A three season running drama focusing on the Medical Examiner and the cases she has to deal with starring Dana Delaney and Jeri Ryan.

I remember occasionally watching the show but not really following it on but now I am it's actually really good. Your intelligence is not insulted as a viewer but at the same time the stories are entertaining and watchable.

It is of course an entertainment, but it's more realistic than the last medical examiner TV series I remember Quincy ( as an aside a woman once told me that it had the most pervy  scene she ever knew of in mainstream TV - the opening credits when star Jack Klugman - No Robert Redford he - was drooling over a bikini clad lovely over the Golden Gate Bridge).

Until the next time.