When Passion Destroys Itself: How My Love of Television Prevents Me From Loving Television
As a passionate writer, voracious reader and former English teacher, people are always surprised to learn that I’m pretty obsessed with television. I’ve watched most of the shows. In years past, during fall TV season, I kept a meticulous calendar of when new shows were premiering and booked those time slots like they were important meetings-because to me, they were. Now you can stream everything anytime so that’s no longer necessary, but I do keep curated lists on every streaming platform I have. And I have them all. And I watch them on a TV that takes up my entire living room wall.
Television gets a bad rap-people call it “the boob tube” and say it’ll rot your brain. I take particular exception to that; I grew up in the age of Schoolhouse Rock and two incredible Bobs (Vila and Ross) who just wanted to teach me how to create beautiful things. So don’t tell me you can’t learn anything from TV.
One thing I’ve realized is that television is a great teacher of one thing in particular-the art and science of storytelling. Great storytelling is what reading, writing and watching have in common. When I was a child, before I learned how to actually write words, I used to scribble curly cues on a piece of paper and elaborately “read” the stories I wrote to my parents (and anyone else willing to listen). My obsession with stories is why I love television so much. And it’s also why I can’t enjoy them the way everyone else can.
Because my obsession has an unpleasant side effect-I can predict with shocking accuracy how stories will unfold. The thrill of reading, listening to or watching a story is in the unknown; knowing how everything will eventually unfold takes a lot of the fun out of it.
Because of my passion, I am less able to enjoy my passion.
Talk about an unfortunate paradox.
My husband and I were watching an episode of CSI:Miami the other day and an alligator came upon a pair of hikers. My husband posited that the alligator was going to eat the hikers.
“I don’t think so. I predict that once the alligator gets close, they’re going to realize that an alligator has just eaten someone. During the necropsy that will eventually occur, the medical examiner will find part of a body and a bullet. They’ll realize there’s been a murder, and the alligator had eaten the already deceased victim.”
That, folks, is exactly what happened.
“How could you possibly have known all that?” My husband asked.
“Because that’s exactly how I would have written it.”
Recently, I started watching a show that I was really really looking forward to. I won’t tell you what the show was because I’m not going to take away the joy of surprise away from you just because I can’t get it anymore.
In the story, the main character falls in love in the first episode. Their love is uncomplicated, genuine and magnetic. The actors’ chemistry was so beautiful it nearly broke my heart. Because I knew. I KNEW.
He was absolutely going to die. No question about it.
I couldn’t enjoy those first episodes. The weight of what I knew would happen stifled the enjoyment I would have felt watching this beautiful, sophisticated, complicated show. I prayed desperately through those first hours that I was wrong; I desperately hoped to be. I wasn’t. It unfolded exactly as I had predicted. And it completely ruined the show for me. It’s a fantastic show, but I probably won’t watch anymore episodes.
My ability to predict shows doesn’t always ruin them for me. I can’t get enough of hour-long scripted dramas like Criminal Minds and CSI. They’re formulaic, predictable and all basically the same. If they caught the “perp” (or unsub if you’re watching Criminal Minds) before the 47 minute mark, they got the wrong guy. It’s usually the last person you expect-so it should be the first person you expect if you know the formula.
My husband has asked that in the future, I refrain from vocalizing my thoughts on what will happen in the programs we’re watching. Since I’m usually right, if I say anything, I’m basically spoiling the show for him before we even get started.
I wouldn’t want to watch tv with me either. I kinda wish I didn’t have to watch tv with me.
I guess I could start watching reality tv-that’s still pretty unpredictable. But I watch tv to escape from reality. Spending my free time in the real world? No thank you. I get more than enough reality already.
