Once upon a time NBC’s motto was “Must See TV.” These days, it’s more like must flee TV.
America’s greatest pastime* used to be fun and escapist. Now, I often feel like instead of kicking back to watch some shows while popping popcorn, I need to pop anti anxiety meds because stuff hits way too close to home. Take that cartoon right there. I said the EXACT same thing the very night before this ran in the paper because I had watched my first and last episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
“So, what’d ya think?” my husband asked, as we — him, our 18-year-old daughter, the fluffy, little deaf dog and me — all sat in stunned silence on the couch. Well, the dog is pretty much always silent, to be truthful.
“Holy cow. That was horrible! I mean, it was good but I can’t watch that show — it hits way too close to home.”
I looked at my daughter.
“Yeah, pass.”
Way. Too. Intense.
Dystopian, totalitarian society in which women are raped and forced into servitude and treated like livestock? With the way things are going, that doesn’t seem too far-fetched, quite frankly. That show freaked me out.
I feel like there’s so much tragedy and sadness and injustice in the world already — just look at People.com — that I don’t want to spend my precious down time sitting through something that makes me squirm and feel sick to my stomach. Or involves Gwyneth Paltrow.
So, I can’t watch “Game of Thrones” or “Orange is the New Black” or “House of Cards” or “Black Mirror.” I appreciate they’re well-done and widely praised, so I will read the synopses that run in “Entertainment Weekly” just to stay in the pop-culture loop, but I just don’t have the internal fortitude it takes to actually witness what I read.
Thank goodness “Brooklyn 99” is coming back. Oh! And dig this sitch — I just heard a live action “Kim Possible” is in the works. That’s so awesome. Best Disney show ever, most definitely NOT “Phineas and Ferb.”
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