My family recently came into possession of a Netflix account, and at first I was thrilled by all the possibilities that Instant Watch had to offer. Suddenly I had hundreds of movies and TV shows at my fingertips.

I watched all seven seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I re-watched the entire “Veronica Mars” series. I discovered “Pushing Daisies.” I threw in the occasional episode of “30 Rock.” All these shows were, witty, clever, meaningful. They made me feel like this complete waste of time wasn’t a complete waste of my time.

But the more I looked around at all that Netflix had to offer, the more I realized that the world is not full of clever TV shows. People don’t care about wit these days. They don’t care about quality. They care about sex scandals and love triangles and attractive leading roles. As long as there is an abundance of steamy drama, people don’t seem to care that the writing is bland and the acting is sub-par.

 I’m so tired of bad TV. I’m tired of hearing discussions of “Gossip Girl” and “Pretty Little Liars” every Tuesday morning. I’m tired of terrible shows like “Desperate Housewives” and “One Tree Hill” going on into their eighth and ninth seasons, while brilliant shows like “Veronica Mars” and “Pushing Daisies” were never able to gather a big enough following to stay afloat.

 I have no objection to people wasting hour after mind-numbing hour in front of a TV screen—I do it all the time. But is it too much to ask that I be able to find something worthwhile to waste it with? I don’t want any more bad television cluttering up my Netflix account or my cable box.