I love TV.

I do, I mean it. I'm sitting here watching last week's "Ed" yet again. It's the one where Warren gets teamed up with Jessica Martell to work on the English project about "Walden." It's my favorite episode of one of my favorite shows.

TV can be fascinating. In the right mood, in the right moment, with the righ show, I can feel I'm there. I'm friends with the gang in Stuckeyville, or a reporter in the press pool of the West Wing. I can't really relate to a yellow-skinned cartoon family in Springfield, but I do find the Hill family in Arlen quite welcoming. I'd like to get in on the good side of the Soprano family living there in North Caldwell, and it would be fun to hang out with people like Will and Grace next time I'm in the City.

"I went wild once on a trip to Scranton, Pennsylvania, but no one was there to capture it on videotape." � Shirley just said that on "Ed." Gotta love it.

It's not just the primetime sitcoms and dramas, either. Every fall Saturday, I feel as if I'm back on campus, packed into Notre Dame Stadium with 80,000 other fans. I jump up off the couch and cheer in jubilation at my team's touchdowns, three-pointers, home runs and Stanley Cup-winning goals. All through the magic of TV.

And when I'm flipping through cable or PBS, I'm learning about the race From the Earth to the Moon, or following Lewis and Clark across the uncharted Louisiana Territory. I'm taught about the Warren Commission or watching strangers somewhere in Southern California get put together on a blind date.

But I do love watching "Ed," especially this one. I relate to Warren a little, that first time reading "Walden," becoming enthralled in Thoreau's experiment � and trying to impress the girl with the knowledge of the book. This episode is a wonderful example of the show's writers' ability with the contrast between Warren spouting Thoreau's "Simplify, simplify" mantra and Kevin Pollack's eccentric "Do Everything" scientist who gets a new lease on life and is determined to get the most out of every minute of each day. Throw in Ed's dealing with aging and his lighthearted, amusing attempt to relive the same week from when he was 18 and I could watch this episode over and over.

And although the song was written about a car, Neil Young's "Long May You Run" playing over Ed's run up the local snow-covered mountain, his successful summit and reflection over the pseudo-Ohio countryside, ties it all together in a way that hooked me again on the show.

Part of my attraction comes from the fact that the show is filmed on location in New Jersey, the towns carefully chosen for their resemblance as "Anywhere, America." Really, you can check at the Internet Movie Database site by searching for "Ed." The bowling alley is an actual abandoned bowling alley in northern New Jersey, and other scenes � the high school, the houses, the pie shop, the Smiling Goat � are filmed in northern NJ and southern New York small towns like Westfield, Montclair and Old Tappan. And the mountain at the end of this episode is no doubt one of those nearby.

I am one of the 24 million people who loves "Ed."