‘Twas the night before Christmas, and I was having a fit.

Halfway through the season we haven’t a hit.

So there I sat, my TiVo lonely and bare.

What, don’t those network execs even care?

We’re asked to endure the silly, the tasteless, the lame.

Forced to watch reality types backstab for fame.

Or we get dumbed-down sitcoms we’ve all seen before.

Thank goodness a few of them have been shown the door.

Luis is gone. Tarzan is dead.

The once-promising Whoopi fills me with dread.

What will it take to get a decent TV season?

A constitutional amendment? An act of treason?

Once my kids are nestled all snug in their beds,

I grab my remote and barrel straight ahead.

Cold Case is cool, Arrested Development fun.

But 10-8? The Mullets? Gimme a gun.

Good shows are tossed out like yesterday’s trash.

Skittish networks act quickly. But please, why so rash?

Shows with potential must be nurtured – give them time.

Dump Alicia Silverstone? Is there a worse crime?

Miss Match is charming, Jake 2.0 is a hoot.

Why are they dying? Shouldn’t Rock Me Baby get the boot?

Good shows on bad nights are then forced to roam.

Pathetic execs say: “It never found a home.”

So on this night I decide to vent all my rage,

screaming like Travis Fimmel locked in a cage.

When suddenly at my door a shadow appears.

A fat, bearded guy, perhaps, and eight tiny reindeer?

I dash to my door, and a strange man do I see.

With torn overalls, bushy hair – a jail detainee?

“Arthur G.,” he announced, “Ghost of TV Seasons Past.

“My programming power remains unsurpassed.”

He put the Judging in Amy and the King in Queens,

put Joan in Arcadia, gave Oliver his Beene.

He gave us “Friends, Wives and Kids,” made “Wanda at Large.”

“Wait,” I say, “isn’t that show sailing off on some barge?”

True, Arthur G. says, some shows lack sticking power.

“If they didn’t,” he adds, “you’d watch TV every hour.”

The tube must be balanced, must have a circle of life.

“Or we’d never leave home, causing agony and strife.”

“Hold up,” I say, dumbfounded by this startling news.

“You mean it’s OK that Threat Matrix makes me snooze?

It’s the work of the universe, when good shows fall into flux?

When Jeff Zucker proclaims his own NBC shows “suck?’ “

“It’s only fair,” Arthur G. says of the rules to which we must adhere.

“For each 24, I make sure there’s a Yes, Dear.”

“So, don’t fret when Karen Sisco is knocked off the table?”

“Where would you find the time?” he asks. “And what about cable?”

With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Arthur G. let me know: “You have nothing to dread.”

A good show’s death shouldn’t push me to the lunatic fringe.

Season 10 of According to Jim shouldn’t make me cringe.

I thanked him and hugged him and then said goodbye.

“Don’t ask the networks about me,” he said. “They’d only deny.”

But as he vanished from sight, he left a note and a warning.

“Turn off the TV. It’s 1 in the morning!”