TV or not TV

I don’t watch television the way some people do – that is, tucked up on the couch, feet up, snacks at hand, ready to watch the show from beginning to end. I used to, of course, because that was the only way there was to watch TV. I remember it being quite stressful.

You’d settle in to watch, let’s say, a pivotal episode of one of my all-time favourite shows, Brideshead Revisited. You just knew that as soon as you’re absorbed in it, the phone will ring. Or someone will knock on the door. Or – God forbid – there’s some kind of emergency and the news team interrupts your broadcast.

No, no. Much better to have some control over what you’re watching. The VCR started us on the road to be able to pick and choose what we watch and change keeps happening. No going back!

We have a big TV in the living room. The truth is, William uses that TV with the PlayStation and it’s rarely used for anything else. There’s a small TV in the kitchen which I can see from my computer chair (I can see the big TV too) and on rare occasions, we’ll have both on – maybe for a big game or election returns or the Oscars.

We eat late so it's usually early-to-mid evening when I go to the kitchen to start meal prep. I turn the little TV on to one re-run or another. I can’t see the screen from where I’m working so a re-run is just what I need. I know everything that’s going to happen! As TV is visual, there are times when no one is talking but there’s a lot of laughter and I may have to take a few steps over so I can see what’s going on. That’s okay though.

I leave the little TV on all evening, usually at a low volume, just for background and the occasional laugh.

But my real TV watching has shifted to morning. I watch Netflix, first for a little while before I get out of bed, then while I’m moving around getting ready for the day. I love the small tablet I watch on; I enjoy the intimacy.

Depending on my position and what else is going on, I might use ear-phones. There’s something about it that reminds me of the very first transistor radio I had when I was a teen, lying in bed, listening to music that only I could hear.

I also watch programs on my tablet while I’m walking on the treadmill. I tried reading books on the treadmill but I found it difficult. Too much up and down.

I’m not at all a binge-watcher. I’m fairly moderate and although I might watch every day, it probably only amounts to a couple of hours – out of 24. I often watch in fairly small increments but that's what makes it so satisfying to be in control. I watch when it suits me.

Broadchurch

In no particular order, here are some of the dramatic series I’ve watched: Damages (an American legal thriller television series starring Glenn Close); House of Cards (US) (an American political drama television series, an adaptation of the BBC's mini-series of the same name); The Politician’s Husband (a political drama series about a marriage between two politicians, and what happens when the wife's career starts to overshadow her husband's); House of Cards (UK) (a British political thriller television drama serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister); Bloodline (a dramatic thriller that explores the demons lurking beneath the surface of a contemporary American family in the Florida Keys); Downton Abbey (I don’t have to tell you); Call the Midwife (a view into the colourful world of midwifery and family life in London's East End during the 1950s); The Good Wife (an American television legal and political drama); Broadchurch (a British television crime drama); Silk (a British series about life at the Bar, the dilemmas and problems that modern day barristers have to face, and what it means to become a silk.)

I liked all these series but my absolute favourite was Call the Midwife. I liked it so much better than (sacrilege warning!) Downton Abbey. I found the lives of the midwives and the people they interacted with so much more significant and important than the nobles of Downton Abbey. I also found it to be better TV. Downton Abbey, in my view, was quite predictable and structured according to a formula and never managed to live up to its TV ancestors, e.g. The Forsyte Saga or Upstairs, Downstairs.

I also watched comedy: Episodes (a show about a British husband-and-wife comedy writing team who travel to Hollywood to remake their successful British TV series, with disastrous results); The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (a show about Kimmy who was rescued after 15 years in a cult and decides to reclaim her life by venturing to New York, where she experiences everyday life with wide-eyed enthusiasm); Grace and Frankie (their lives are turned upside down when they learn that their husbands have fallen in love with each other and want to get married. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.)

I found Episodes hilarious with so many believable premises and such appealing characters. I recommend it.

And then there was Mad Men – but that’s a whole other story for another time.