Troubled Mind

Can we talk about bad TV for a second? Admittedly, since the writer’s strike, I’ve picked up on a mere fraction of the shows I used to watch, with The Office and Lost being the only shows I kept watching, at least during their original runtime. My GoodReads profile is grateful, as is my brain, for there is a lot more space devoted to things like Actual Thoughts and A Decent Vocabulary*. (This, more than anything, is why I’m blogging more. Thank you, writer’s strike!)

I don’t miss any of the things I used to suck my time with, and when I read the Weecaps on Television Without Pity for Desperate Housewives, let me tell you, I am downright GLEEFUL that I stopped watching that trainwreck, because God, dragging on the whole Susan-Mike relationship tension with a flash-forward? SERIOUSLY. GIVE US A BREAK.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, though: I watch Grey’s Anatomy on my PC, late at night, when no one can see me. I find it helps immeasurably with the attachment issues. I no longer give a rip what happens to MerDer, but instead, see it as mild entertainment on my computer that would otherwise be spent idly surfing. I’m blissfully detached, like it’s merely a YouTube video talking about the best tactics to beat The Legend of Zelda.

One of the (many) side effects of working from home is that I just roll over and start working from bed. I get up, pee and come back to check my e-mail and start cranking through my to-do list. And watch Charmed. Oh wait, what? Yes, CHARMED. The show where Alyssa Milano never ever covers her midriff and Holly Marie Combs finally gains enough weight by 2006 to look like a NORMAL THIN-TYPE PERSON, yet compared to her dangerously skeletal costars, looks almost pudgy? Yes, that one. It’s on TNT from 8 to 10 a.m. and it has served as background for the clickity clackity nature of my pajama’d mornings. And if I’m too focused on my actual WORK to half pay attention to any of the salient plot points? I record it and watch it that evening. Oh hell, I record it anyway, because I can never catch the whole thing.

Yes. I seem to have fallen in love with its campy, cheesy charms (HA! A pun!) and truly abysmal special effects, not to mention pitifully slow reaction times by three supposed witches. Dude, it’s TERRIBLE. It’s AWFUL. And yet, it doesn’t go all Ross and Rachel on us (I’m looking at you, Jim and Pam). It just IS.

And this morning, I literally SQUEALED when I realized that the series finale was at 8 a.m. and that the 9 o’clock hour would be filled with THE VERY FIRST EPISODE, EVER. And that the whole thing was starting over in ORDER! The whole series! FOR ME TO TIVO AND ENJOY WITH MY LUNCHTIME CEREAL. For the first time, I’ll get to see how Shannen Doherty’s character dies and how on EARTH they manage to explain away the arrival of Rose McGowan.

Charmed has awakened the hunger for camp. I want campy, WB-style shows to order by the TRUCKLOAD and watch while eating Special K Chocolatey Delight during my lunch hour and in the evenings. I’ve never seen any of them: Gilmore Girls, Felicity, Veronica Mars. Never! I’ve never seen them beyond a single episode or two! So I ask you, other than the three I’ve just mentioned (AND CHARMED OF COURSE), what do you recommend? And if you had to prioritize the above, how would you? My only requirement is that it is either marketed entirely toward the tween set or be so bad that it’s positively DECADENT. Extra points if it ran on the WB.

*This is a lie, because lately, I find myself completely and totally forgetting words, like I’m the early stages of dementia. Adam says it’s happening to him too, and it’s because we’re getting OLDER. Which, GAH. I’ve managed to avoid wrinkles, but is my brain really turning to mush? I was on the phone with a client the other day, and I couldn’t think of the word “autonomous”. I knew the meaning, and I knew what I wanted to say, and yet the best I could do was offer something along the lines of, “you know, um, finish the project and uh … make it … uh … run on its own without … without outside … help? You know, on its own all alone-like?” And at Eastern Mountain Sports, I couldn’t think of the word “placebo” and kept saying “psychosomatic” in its stead, when they aren’t even close in literal meaning, though they can be related. And yet I did it OVER AND OVER AGAIN and then saying things like, “Not psychosomatic, but … but … pla … pla … or is it pah?” until someone weakly offered, “Placebo?” YES. THAT IS IT. PLACEBO.

Also, up there where I say “special effects”? Took me a full minute to realize it wasn’t “side effects”. BRAIN GOING. FAST.

I’m going to start drinking brain-boosting tea and doing sudoku, like the old dude in front of the big 1970s sun on CBS Sunday Morning says to. It improves your memory, you know. Sigh.

Happy Tuesday!

**Catie Curtis

70 comments May 19th, 2008