You have to go to the two sites that may just rid of you TV addition - I spend a lot of time watching TV shows (many as recent as this weeks episodes) on the web in VERY good definition:
www.hulu.comwww.fancast.comEverything I miss during the week, I watch there. I'm thinking you may not be on hghspeed, which will be aan issue - you can pause a show while it loads.
But both sites have a huge movie selection too and all of it is free with minimal commercials.
You are right though, All in the Family covered topics that no one else would touch until Maude, and C&L surely pushed limits too - seems anything is game these days, but there is so much good old TV to be watched, there are entire generations who can now see the shows we watched for years which they never even heard of. Hope these work out for you.