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 fter two years of devotion, I decided it was time for me to end it."That's it!" I yelled. "I am sick of you answering my questions with more questions. I thought we were really going someplace, but now I'm not sure anymore. I've given you the best nights of my life, and until you give me something in return, we are done!" "I didn't think this episode was that bad," said my husband from the other end of the couch. "Well, you can keep watching," I said. Five episodes into the third season, I broke up with Lost. It was an awkward split, seeing as
How do I end up in these long-term relationships with TV shows? It's not like I don't have relationships outside of prime time; I have good friends and an extraordinarily functional marriage. But occasionally I'll forsake them all. Lost is just the latest in a line of television shows that have, for me, taken on the unmistakable qualities of a serious romance. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my first, a show that made every viewer feel like it had been written just for them. I knew I wasn't the only one who'd been seduced, but it didn't stop me from having Buffy-themed dreams, reading embarrassing fan fiction and compulsively checking spoiler websites. Next came 24. I was drawn to the mystery at its core, and to the adrenaline rush of each breakneck episode. But it all turned sour during the Season 1 finale, in which I realized that the writers were just making shit up as they went along. It was all plot twists for the sake of plot twists, danger for the sake of danger, sex for the sake of sex. I felt toyed with, humiliated by my naïve belief that the show was going somewhere meaningful. I barely watched TV at all after 24 — until Lost came along. The same things attracted me that always do: the mystery, the clever writing. But Lost is a show that wouldn't settle for a fling. Miss a single episode, and key plot points slip through your fingers. A joke two seasons later flies over your head. More than any television show before it, Lost encourages co-dependency. Once I gave in to Lost's demands for a weekly commitment, I started to enjoy our routine. Maybe we had a future. Maybe Lost would give me the kind of satisfaction many of my friends seem to get from Law and Order; they use words like "reliable" and "comforting" when describing the show, as if they've been married to it for years. Law and Order is not really
That's the thing about getting involved with a television show: even though it can seem less risky than getting involved with another person, a TV show will always leave you in the end. Unless you've fallen for Meet the Press, committing to a show means accepting the inevitable break-up. The only question is whether you'll stop watching before the show disappears on its own. Maybe this is why so many people watch already-completed seasons of their favorite shows on DVD: no risk of mid-season cancellation. (My friend Anthony compares watching a show on DVD to going to Vegas with someone you've just met — an intense fling, minus the tentative getting-to-know you process, and then it's done.) But TV shows were not meant to be watched in twelve-hour binges, and there's a reason: a good show relies on anticipation to keep things fresh. The plot twists during Sweeps Week may be as inevitable as flowers on Valentine's Day, but they're still something to look forward to — and always, somehow, pleasantly surprising. Is it the element of surprise that makes me turn to TV when I could be investing those emotions in my marriage? After five years, there's not much mystery in my relationship, and the high-pitched uncertainty of TV dramas — who lives, who dies, who escapes, who's pregnant — leaves me feeling pleasantly off-kilter. To watch a TV show is to flirt with the unknown. Or, it could simply be that I like my marriage so much that I seek other, similarly rewarding relationships from TV — a theory put forth in this study, which concluded that real-life relationships and television relationships might be "mutually reinforcing." Whatever the reason, I crave another steady television relationship. For the moment, I'm flirting with the surprisingly sexy new Dr. Who, which I download after it airs on the BBC. And I've found the perfect no-strings arrangement in NBC Thursdays: The Office, Scrubs and 30 Rock. All three shows know exactly how to meet my needs — they're familiar and reliable, yet fun and relaxing. I can skip a week, or I can answer the phone in the middle. If these were hour-long shows, maybe it could be something more, but right now those half-hour shows simply scratch an itch. Or maybe it's more than that; maybe the knowledge that Scrubs will be gone next year, or the constant cancellation threats looming over 30 Rock, have made me wary of declaring my feelings. And now I'm starting to think I made a mistake with Lost. I bumped into it a few weeks ago and it was just like old times: funny, smart, sexy, thrilling. I left because I felt like my commitment wasn't being rewarded; now it was opening up and telling me the secrets I'd been dying to hear. So I decided to come back, on a trial basis, until the finale. Maybe this is just the TV equivalent of ex sex. Or maybe my summer will be spent lurking around Lost spoiler sites, reminiscing about past seasons, and looking forward to the fall — when everyone gets a chance to start over. n°
©2007 Gwynne Watkins and hooksexup.com. |
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