I've been kinda sickly this year, so I've been spending a lot of time on the couch watching TV. To give you another idea of how abnormal my life is... the girlfriend and I watch the same TV from separate couches.
But that's not the point of this post, this time around I want to talk about TV shows.
Now, I realize that it's possible not a lot of people will relate to this post, because not everyone watches American TV. I accept that. For the three Americans that do swing by this community, you'll know the shows, even if you haven't seen them.
My girlfriend (let's call her Bee, because she's blonde and B is her first initial) likes watching shows involving emergency services. I say 'involving' instead of 'about' because these shows are seldom about the emergency services involved, they're about fighting impossible odds, surviving horrible situations, and making difficult moral choices.
Like any good reclusive conspiracy theorist, I'll also tell you that they push an agenda.
Because I'm a man and everything I want is wrong, we watch what she likes when we watch TV together. That means that I've seen every episode of every show that Dick Wolfe or Shonda Rhimes has ever written, which is basically every drama on ABC and NBC for the last 20 years.
Every Dick Wolfe show is like:
TONIGHT, on medical fire-crime drama: A good looking public employee with a history of insubordination will have to break all the rules to save a relatable victim and capture a dangerous criminal... who's even worse than we think. They'll butt heads with their superiors and face demons from their past... but will someone pay the ULTIMATE price? Don't miss the 'new' episode...
I put 'new' in quotes because they're all the same episode, really, so are any of them new?
All the Shonda Rhimes shows go:
Good looking genius health care professional must make a difficult choice to save the person they love... but will there be time in the middle of an ongoing disaster? Who will live to talk about their feelings, and who will pay the ULTIMATE PRICE? Find out, in the 'new' episode...
I pick on Bee relentlessly for liking these shows, because she really hates the reality of our police, fire, and medical services. On TV, police solve almost 100% of their cases. Locally, it's closer to 60%. If you're the victim of a crime other than murder, you might have to call several departments several times just to get someone to come and talk to you. On TV, people who need medical help get medical help no matter how many rules the doctors, nurses, and administrators have to break. Locally, you can sit in a purgatory room for days while they decide if your insurance plan makes you profitable to treat. On TV, the firefighters always save everyone, and almost nobody ever loses their home. Locally, the firefighters stop you from going back into your house to get valuables while it burns to the ground waiting for the pump engine to show up. When I was in high school here, our Fire Chief's son was arrested for multiple arson.
It's all part an agenda to make us believe that our police, fire, and medical services are perfectly fine the way they are, we just need to give them more money and less accountability. The reason so many people think Americans are stupid is because that agenda works remarkably well.
But I'm not here to talk about agendas, let's keep this post on topic.
Because I am who I am, I have problems with almost every TV show, even the ones I like. Are you familiar with an older show called 'Sons of Anarchy'? It's about the bloody life of a gun running motorcycle gang, and like all good shows, I love it and hate it and watch it over and over.
Never mind that the main character is always riding around on a motorcycle with no windshield... smoking a cigarette... at highway speeds. If this doesn't sound impossible to you... stick your head out of the window of a moving vehicle sometime and try doing anything with your face. Just try to smoke, or eat, outdoors, on a really windy day. Now imagine that wind was twice as fast, and you had to use both your hands for other things, and you get the idea how impossible it is to smoke, or drink, or use a cell phone, while driving a motorcycle.
Another thing that bothers me is the reality that they leave out of the show. For example, where do they get all those biker patches? I wanted to see the scene where three bearded bikers walk up to an old protestant lady at the craft store, with a blood and beer stained drawing of an assault rifle with a bloody reaper blade affixed like a bayonet, and ask:
The show had graphic depictions of sex, rape, murder, suicide, and drug use, all mingled with the mundane realities of everyday life, but not one scene of Harley-Davidsons outside Hobby Lobby while a guy named Tigger picks up the embroidery order.
What a bunch of bullshit.
I like comedy shows the best, because they're not meant to be taken seriously. Unfortunately, there just aren't a lot of good ones on TV right now. Apparently, Americans would rather be misled and outraged than feel good. I really enjoy comedy cartoons, but Bee absolutely HATES every cartoon but 'King of the Hill'.
Since Bee rules the TV in the living room, that means I watch my cartoons alone in my room upstairs (I call it my office, she calls it my hidey-hole) like a damn incel. I assure you, my celibacy is 100% voluntary. I don't have time for much besides the grandparents of all modern comedies, 'The Simpsons' and 'South Park'. I know there's a lot of great new cartoons out there, and their loyal fans are welcome to tell me how ignorant I am (in all caps), in the comments.
Of course, watching any TV, even the streaming services where I pay EXTRA to not see commercials, you're going to see some commercials. Commercials on American TV are quite a bit like the medical shows. The commercials are mostly about pharmaceuticals, they have more medical terms in them than the shows, and honestly, the commercials are more straightforward about the things that can go wrong.
I don't know what ailments most of the pharmaceutical commercials are even claiming to treat, but I know they must be horrific, because the side effects are so terrible, you must really be suffering to want to try the drug. Lists of side effects are getting so long, soon our commercials are going to say '...To Be Continued!' at the end.
But I didn't write this post to talk about pharmaceuticals, and I think I've said enough about TV for now.
Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in to the NEXT EXCITING EPISODE!! Some other time, same great channel!
This week's episode brought to you by Fukitol... the once a day pill that makes you forget what happened during your day. When you're sick of it all... Fukitol! Side effects may include rash, sneezing, shortness of breath, anal leakage, loss of hearing, suicidal thoughts, death, delirium, and spontaneous combustion. Do not take Fukitol if you're allergic to Fukitol or any of its proprietary ingredients. Ask your doctor if Fukitol is right for you.
I couldn't find a photo in my archives that I liked for this post, so I snapped this pic of the Green Giant float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. NBC probably has some kind of legal rights to this image, but fuck 'em.