I hired a guru so I don’t miss any good television shows

This fall I don't plan on missing any of the hit television premieres or pilots. No more standing around the water cooler listening to everyone tell me how great a new show was that I didn't watch or didn't record.

This year I've hired a television guru. Actually I should say enlisted the help of instead of hired because my guru doesn't actually cost me a dime. His name is TiVo and he's quite good.

Guru guides

All joking aside, I'm referring to a TiVo service called guru guides. Guru guides are groups of shows that have a common theme. Using your TiVo you can subscribe to any of these guru guides and your TiVo will automatically record all of shows in the guide that you are able to receive (if a show is on HBO and you don't have HBO you're out of luck).

Don't ask me who picks the shows that go in a guide. I don't know and I'm not really sure I care. I just trust that someone up in that magical TiVo cloud is taking care of me.

There are a handful of guru guides to pick from. I currently subscribe to a guru guide called the AFI 100. Any time any of my channels broadcast one of the movies in the American Film Institute's list of top 100 movies, my TiVo automatically records it for me. Nice.

TiVo just announced two new guru guides, one for this fall's lineup of season premieres (shows that are in their 2nd or later season) and one for this fall's lineup of pilots (new shows airing for the first time).

You don't have to watch them all

Now please don't think that I am actually going to watch all of these shows. No way. It's just nice to know that they are automatically recording in case I miss one that I later find out I want to watch.

Like TiVo mentioned in one of their previous email newsletters to me, "let's see your cable DVR do that!"