TV shows I am breaking up with
There comes a time, when you heed a certain call, and the world must come together as one.
That song has not stopped playing in my head for like 3 days.
Anyway, there comes a time when I part company with certain TV shows. I think of it as breaking up with them. They are still running but for some reason I no longer am interested in watching them. Two that have hit that mark.
1. Everybody Loves Raymond.
I used to love this show. I would watch it on Monday nights and then 3 days later when it was syndicated on TNT or whatever cable channel. I think I liked it because the fictional character went to St. John’s, like I did, lived on Long Island, like I did, and wrote for Newsday, which I consider the best all around newspaper in the country. I loved that show. The family was dysfunctional, the character an everyday kind of guy, and it was about sports. Sports. Sports writer for Newsday who went to St. John’s. But at the beginning of last year I tried watching it once and found myself thinking of other shows. My mind kept wandering and I keep wondering what else was on even as Robert and Debra picked on Raymond. I found myself fantasizing about NYPD Blue, even though I wouldn’t see it until the next night. I kept finding things wrong with it, and found myself getting annoyed at the slightest things. And this year I find the show whenever I am channel surfing while running on my treadmill in the basement, and stopping to watch is never considered. Everybody Loves Raymond and I have officially split up. We have gone our separate ways. I find nothing redeeming about it now and wonder what I actually saw in it during the good years. Even the kids are ugly now that they have grown up. It’s a train wreck. I guess it had an edge to it, and a slice-of-life type comedy that is really hard to sustain. But now I find it boring and tedious, the plots just rehashed and Debra is a mean and vicious woman.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted and there are a couple of episodes that I will remember fondly. Good luck and I will probably watch the series finale in a few weeks.
2. ER
This one came out of the blue. I was blind sided. When I got my TiVo type box, a DVR from Comcast, my friend Brian from Watertown told me it would change my TV watching behavior forever. And it has. One thing is that after we set up a season pass to record all of our shows, we are no longer on a time clock. Being in front of the TV each Thursday at 10 to watch ER is as important as wearing a surgical gown and stethoscope. With the DVR, we sit down and play old shows whenever we want to. It’s glorious.
So with that said, over the last 2 months, when I have sat down to catch up on the recordings, I have always found a reason to skip ER. I go through other shows first, I search for new movies on On Demand, I surf. ER is sitting there in my DVR recordings and I let it sit there, without giving it any attention or time. So this past Saturday Patti and I had about 1 hour to kill at night and we had nothing else to watch, so we played the most recent ER. About 20 minutes into it, I turned to Patti and said “I think I am going to break up with ER”.
This one is hard on me. I loved ER, and still find it interesting. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to watch it. I think maybe after 11 years on the air, the show has runs its course. Hospital shows, like cop shows, offer an infinite amount of stories, but do have an expiration date. I think that has come for ER. I think another reason I don’t like it is because there are no dark plots, like a drug or drinking problem, or the bad side of a nice person. It’s just…blah. That feeling was creeping up with NYPD Blue when they decided to call it quits and I didn’t have to go through the heartache of splitting up.
I still like ER, sort of, but think I will no longer attempt to watch it. If I am home at 10 on a Thursday night, I will probably watch it because there is no need to keep up with each episode, but I have a feeling I won’t be seeing any of my old friends anymore. Goodbye Carter, goodbye Abby, goodbye Pratt and Luka, I’ll miss you. It was fun while it lasted but we grew apart, our goals changed, and with my increasingly limited time to watch TV, you are getting bumped. Thanks for the memories, it was fun. I’ll see you at your finale episode.