Kathie Skerry never set out to become the queen of all TV.

Yet that’s what she’s become to thousands of fans less than 18 months since she launched GiveMeMyRemote.com, a many-times-daily destination for devout boob-tubers and those just looking for the straight scoop and the latest skinny on their favorite shows.

“No, I didn’t think anybody would read it,� Skerry, 30, said from her Beantown home. “I thought it was kind of for my own pleasure. Maybe a few of my friends would read it, but that’s about it.�

Logging 200,000 unique visitors a month these days, it’s safe to say she’s exceeded expectations, though she maintains it’s still just a hobby that takes a backseat to her day job.

Some hobby

Skerry’s daily reporting on the latest news and buzz surrounding shows from Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars to American Idol and her personal favorite, The Office, has earned her industry cred and filled her snail-mailbox with screeners of new shows and her e-mail box with tips galore.

She works hard to maintain a well-rounded TV news site, replete with fan forums, a 24/7 chatroom and a companion podcast. But it was her passion for The Office – not to mention a certain floppy-haired salesman named Halpert – and the show’s ascension to must-see-TV status that vaulted GiveMeMyRemote.com to must-click status for fans of so many shows.

And a chat with Skerry could focus on any one of them. But she’s got too many notches on her Dunder-Mifflin belt to steer the conversation any other way. They include a mention by cast members on The Office Season 2 DVD commentary, bragging rights for helping spur NBC to supersize the Season 2 finale, interviews with several cast members and a tour of the set last week that she recounted in epic fashion for her readers.

(Read about it here and here.)

She can’t divulge too much about how it came about that she and Tanster of OfficeTally scored the visit, but suffice to say their support for the show played a key role.

For Skerry it was the culmination of a series of brushes with greatness she’s had with The Office, from the time Jenna Fisher (Pam the receptionist) mentioned GiveMeMyRemote.com in her mySpace blog to later meeting Fischer at a taping of the Rachael Rae show. In between came a Jan. 17, 2006 interview with Fischer and John Krasinski that came just as The Office’s online following was beginning to take off. A bunch of TV sites picked up the link, boosting her site’s profile enormously.

But nothing compares to a day spent meeting the entire cast, touring the set and watching the filming of an upcoming episode.

The only point of comparison Skerry had was a visit to the Veronica Mars set, where everything seemed smaller than on TV. Not so with Dunder-Mifflin. Everything was built to scale to match the actual office building used in Season 1.

“So if that means that there wasn’t enough room for the cameramen because there wasn’t in the first one, then that’s how it went,â€? she says. “I think from a stage perspective, when you walk through the doors and you’re on the stage where they film Dunder-Mifflin you feel like you’re actually in Dunder-Mifflin, which is awesome.â€?

The cast, meanwhile, was welcoming and down-to-earth, especially the biggest star of all, Steve Carell.

“It was a real a thrill to meet him and to see how grounded he was despite his major success,â€? said Skerry.

Yeah, that’s great. So what was Jenna Fischer like?

“Oh, she’s hot, dude,� she said, confirming the obvious. “She’s hot.�

Same goes for all The Office ladies, it seems. Skerry caught Kate Flannery’s stage show, The Lampshades, and said Meredith could fill out a dress with the best of them. Angela Kinsey was “a bubbly little Texas girl,� showing them around the set and inviting them to lunch with her, Oscar Nunez and Flannery. Kinsey even showed up late to hair and makeup so she could make a cameo in the OfficeTally chatroom.

She credits the cast’s renowned accessibility with fueling both the show’s popularity and its online following. And it was a very organic thing, in her view.

“It really kind of feels like everything came together at one time,� Skerry says. “The Office was taking off on iTunes, the cast members were getting on board, sites like NorthernAttack started to come up and talk about The Office a lot. And it almost just kind of feels like everything came together at once.�

A fan first, blogger second

The other part of her recent weekend was spent at the Museum of Television and Radio’s William S. Paley Television Festival, where she attended The Office panel – as a fan, mind you.

Skerry claims she’s no writer; she writes like she speaks. But she knew most people would never get the chance to visit the show’s set and see what she saw. So come write-up time, she says, she “didn’t want to leave anything out of the experience because I wanted to make people feel that they were there or at least could see it through my eyes.�

For all that passion, it must be hard to turn attention to shows like Prison Break or How I Met Your Mother, no? Truth is, while The Office gets a fair amount of play at GiveMeMyRemote.com, it could get a lot more. Skerry says she passes on many of the Office tidbits that flow through her in-box.

“It kills me not to post every single one, but I am trying to be a general TV site,� she says.

She doesn’t try to cover every show on TV, though. She covers what she likes, or what she thinks she’d like if she had unlimited time and Tivo space. She wants the site to be like a conversation among friends. And if she has no opinion on a show, she lets it go.

“There are a lot of huge shows that I don’t watch that people would like me to,� she says. “But it is my side hobby. There’s only so much time in the day.�

For shows she can’t get to but hopes to find time for come the rerun season, she recruits volunteer show recappers (including this writer) to extend her site’s appeal.

“30 Rock is a great example,� Skerry says. “I wanted to cover that because I knew it really fit in with the kind of shows that GMMR readers watched.�

As for The Office, she says the show has helped spur a welcome recent trend in sit-coms: the single-camera, no-laugh-track approach. Scrubs did it even earlier, she says. Now laugh tracks can seem jarring, though she’s not totally opposed to shows that take a traditional tack.

“I happen to love How I Met Your Mother,� she says. “I think it’s really funny. It’s one of my favorite shows, and that has a laugh track. So as long as it’s good, smart comedy, do whatever you want.�

And while other shows have dedicated online audiences, they’re not usually top 10 shows like Law & Order or NCIS. Skerry quotes Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas who said he’d take smaller ratings for a passionate fan base. That’s what The Office has, Skerry says, and the people behind the scenes appreciate it.

They’ve told her that after an episode airs, they’ll log onto her site and others just to see what people are saying. Knowing that doesn’t make her take GiveMeMyRemote.com more seriously, though. That’s not the point.

If it was, it would become a chore, and life’s too busy for that, she says.

“I do feel, now that there’s a pretty big audience every day, I do feel an obligation to post something,â€? she admits.

She loves to read but doesn’t find much time for it. She also likes going out with friends, but days that start at 5 a.m. and last until past midnight make that hard. Not that she’s complaining.

“You know what it comes down to? It goes back to that old saying,� she says. “When you find something that you love to do, it doesn’t seem like work.�

But she has no long-term game plan.

“I’ll probably keep writing until people stop coming,� she says. “When I personally get bored with it, and it becomes a chore, I think it’s time to shut it down. But I don’t think my love for TV is going to be dying off.�

A Jam-tastic finale?

Speaking of the future, Skerry doesn’t want a repeat of last season’s Jim-Pam finale. That was too perfect to try and replicate. She does want to see the two star-crossed Office mates together soon. Talk of Rashida Jones’s new pilot has her confused, but Karen has stuck around longer than anyone expected, she thinks.

That may not last much longer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a fairytale ending for Jim and Pam, she cautions.

“Unfortunately that means bye bye to Ms. Karen/Rashida,� she says. “But hey. That’s what happens. I want to see Jim and Pam together, and I want to see…Yeah, I don’t really care about anything else.�

Bonus Round (because there’s got to be a bonus round)

Jim or Dwight: Jim…well unless of course I need protection from aliens, then it’s Dwight all the way.

Jam or Karim: Really, are you even asking me this? JAM!

Dwangela or Jachael: Dwangela: They are a mystery wrapped in an enigma called Dunder-Mifflin.

Poor Richard’s or Chilis: Chili’s – It’s sacred. The first Jim and Pam kiss, and it’s the house where the Dundies were announced.

Pink the color or Pink the person: Pink anything – as long as it’s on Kelly Kapoor. She’s Ah-mah-zing.

Stamford or Scranton: I’m sorry, can you repeat the question? I don’t recall there being a Stamford. I must have blocked it permanently from my mind.
The Conference Room or the Parking Lot of Doom: This is a tough one, but I’m going to go crazy and say the PLoD. It was the scene of the confession, and without the confession we wouldn’t have had The Kiss.

Season 2 or Season 3: Sorry, but it’s definitely Season 2 for me. Season 3 has a few precious episodes left to change my mind.

Beet farmers or volunteer sheriff’s deputies: If I say beet farmer, am I making my crush on Mose too obvious?

David Brent or Michael Scott: I’ll never choose. You can’t make me…it’s just too cruel.

Jazz Babies posters in the office or JamaicaJanSunPrincess posters in the warehouse: I think Angela’s Jazz Babies poster is cute and inspiring. And why would I want the warehouse guys to stare at Urkel Grue all day?(Photos courtesy GiveMeMyRemote.com)