The L-Word
ER
Desperate Housewives
Queer as Folk
and "Love Actually" at times of despair;)

I have a Ph.D. studentship at Aston, I received the offer in May and didn't finish my MA degree until late June. They were totally fine with that, the other uni that also offered me funding (but less, so I chose Aston) made the scholarship offer conditional on me getting the degree by August.

good luck chris! I'm starting in September, too.

http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza/research/qual.htm
www.qualitative-research.net
you should find a lot of useful stuff there.