Lauren RabainoToday is Thursday, and I feel compelled to criticize a cultural paradigm in which, as predicted, ordinary Americans find themselves collectively assembled to watch the season premiere of their favorite television shows in violent disarray and complete exuberance.
That’s right, the time has come for network execs to bring in the don Corleone of series moneymakers. Summer hiatus is officially over; godless television has begun to spawn.
Ladies and gentlemen, do not let the tyranny of these so-called summer “teases” that have been divulging hardly any information about your favorite shows, these morsels of nothingness, get to you. The wait has ended; we have made it to the promised land of next season.
The big guns are back and they are singing to the glorious overtures of “Ugly Betty,” “Heroes,” “The Office” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Kapow!
Now we have the glorious fortitude of admitting television addiction. Great.
That is to say, you, me, and millions of loyal enthusiasts will hail the rebirth of network television by dedicating countless hours and hundreds of precious life moments glued to the tube. Goodbye free will.
But let’s be frank. What is it exactly about Ugly Betty’s mockery of shy, clumsy, whimsical minorities without fashion sense that just says, “give me an Emmy, won’t ya?”
And on a serious note, I don’t know how much more of Grey’s tempestuous instability I can take before my head actually pops off like a freaking button on a cold winter’s day. Let’s not even talk about being the cheerleader and saving the world.
So why do we permit ourselves to such torturous degradation week after week, subjugating ourselves to unremarkable writing, clich‚ after clich‚? We know what’s going to happen, these shows practically write themselves, sentence after sentence, hour after hour. Yet we sit here moralizing, analyzing and psychologically edifying these characters like in some twisted mind game, for faults that, in the end, are not unlike our own. They, like us, just want to connect and feel and love and make mistakes and love again. Don’t we all?
Is that it? Do we watch television in some sick cyclical fashion which on some subconscious level tries to make us feel somewhat more alive and part of something whole – a bigger human picture, the more
inclusive social apparatus?
Not to go all Freudian here, but did I just solve the biggest social conspiracy of network television ever? Have I found the meaning of why we as Americans will always be addicted to “Will and Grace,” the “Friends,” the “Ally McBeal” and, dare I say it, “Grey’s Anatomy”?
In each of these shows there is something fundamental, something so elemental that keeps us coming back for more. We don’t even have a fighting chance in the face of true human interaction.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: next Thursday, when you’re sitting in front of the television laughing your ass off at “The Office,” think about your comrades in arms, the brave ones out there who have found the strength to perhaps skip one of their “must-sees” and partake in Bike Night instead.