A few hours ago, I was forced to make a tough decision that no sane human being on Earth should ever make; Community, or The Vampire Diaries?

Usually, I catch CW’s supernatural soap on Thursdays at 7, but last night saw the season four premiere of NBC’s Community on the same time slot! Community is a show I love, and it hasn’t been on the air since May of last year, but dammit, I need my weekly dose of supernatural romance!

As if that wasn’t bad enough, this coming Sunday, Feb. 10, sees the midseason premiere of The Walking Dead, on the same time slot as PBS’ Downton Abbey!

photo courtesy: adweek.com

Seriously, what is the deal with so many shows I love competing with each other? You have my love you guys, stop fighting each other! It’s making me feel bad.

Whenever I go through this, I find myself switching the channels back and forth to try to watch them all, but I always fail. I end up missing a key scene in one show, or get so into one that I don’t watch the other one.

I know that buying a DVR could help, but I won’t entertain the idea. I’m the sort of guy who MUST see something live. So if I have to wait to see something I recorded, I’d die.

Now, for Thursday, I decided to devote my full attention to Community. It’s been through too much behind the scenes drama for me to not see how the premiere would end up (it was just fyne by the way).

photo courtesy: uproxx.com

But geesh, what am I going to do about Sunday? The Walking Dead, after two poor to mediocre first seasons, turned into one of the best, most thrilling shows on TV in its third season. Plus, its cliffhanger last Dec. left me wanting more.

As for Downton Abbey, I’m kind of iffy on that.

I’m not going to lie, this season (or series) is a huge mess compared to the previous two seasons (whatever) I’m addicted to it! This current season has felt really unfocused with every other episode dragging the storyline down and not adding anything to this season. But for every misstep the season has made (like making Ethel an important character, Lord Crawley and Matthew fighting over the estate and Bates imprisoned (which has only been watchable because Bates looks strangely sexy in his prison getup)) the show has had plenty of great stuff going for it. I’m particularly talking about the show’s second and fourth episode, which has all the quality that you’d expect from this show.

photo courtesy: wetpaint.com

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I’m going to watch Downton Abbey! For crying out loud, it got spoofed by Sesame Street, a sure sign of awesomeness. Has Walking Dead been spoofed by Sesame Street? No? Thought so.

Besides, both of those shows show encores of their episodes so I can catch up with Walking Dead immediately after Downton, provided that I don’t go into Facebook or Twitter beforehand and be spoiled (I’ll never forgive you for that, Vanessa). Honestly, I think that network TV should also do encores of their shows late night. I mean, there’s nothing but infomercials then, so who’d miss them?

So, what are your thoughts? Do you have any other examples of your favorite shows competing for your love? I mean, I didn’t even mention how stacked Tuesday nights are (Happy Endings and New Girl on the same time, are you kidding me? Likewise for Cougar Town and Justified.  And Once Upon a Time and The Simpsons and Bob’s Burger’s on Sundays.) Comment below and don’t forget to follow me on twitter!