Back in 1985, my
family got its first video recorder, my mother used it to record a
dramatisation of Dickens' Little Dorrit
and
to the best of
my knowledge she still hasn't had the time to watch it. I believe
that the only reason my parents still own a VHS player is the
mistaken belief that one day they will have both time and inclination
to watch this disappointingly dated Dickensian drama.
This
is Charles Frere, not Charles Dickens
I myself have always
had an unhealthy - bordering on the abusive - relationship with
television; badmouthing it behind its back while it emotionally
blackmails me so that I can never leave it (every time I threaten to
throw it out over a bad episode of Doctor Who it promises me exciting
Sunday Night dramas but almost never delivers - the Night Manager was
good though wasn't it?) Back when my parents were relentlessly
recording every episode of Howards' Way, Dynasty and Poldark (at one
point my father had three seperate video recorders to avoid clashes
and briefly considered a fourth) I used to laugh at them stacking up
hours and hours of material that their incredibly busy lives would
never allow them time to watch (I suspect they may have invented
binge-watching while we were out, a good twenty years before anybody
else had thought of it). At the time, I would keep an eye out for any
new series of Red Dwarf, and that was about it. The rest of the time
I was content to watch whatever happened to be on when I was in a TV
mood.
Mum and Dad never
used to understand my ability to watch any old shit, just as I
considered them to be in thrall to the schedulers and could not
understand their need to find time to watch the many things they
wanted to watch. I did briefly start using a video because by the
time I got in from a gig and wanted to watch some TV there was only
Ceefax on, but then TV went digital and a million new channels
appeared and they all went on all night. Suddenly everything was a
lot more confusing and it was impossible to follow a series because
every time you put a show on it turned out to be an old episode from
a year ago, unless you ignored it, in which case it was the last one
that for some reason was the only one that would never be repeated (I
have still never seen the last episode of Quantum Leap, I hear it's
good though). So, despite trying to watch the big series like Lost
and Heroes I mostly missed them and just watched movies, cartoons,
old Star Trek episodes, and DVD box sets; not all at once, but the
odd episode now and then, like a normal human. Also, by this time I
was living with two teenagers, so I mostly had to watch whatever they
wanted to and, as a result, can no longer watch the Simpsons.
I cancelled Sky a
few years ago (hoping to encourage the kids to move out, it worked
eventually) and gave up watching Game of Thrones (I might not even
bother buying the next book, since the last two made it abundantly
clear that George RR Martin has no clue what he is doing anymore) I
felt free, there was less TV making me try to watch it all the time.
But then, last year, I bought a youview box and became
my parents
(they
have
sky plus now, I suspect they
have a couple of other recording devices as well, but haven't
checked). The
irresistible allure of the green button, combined with my overly
eclectic taste, is my achilles heel. Every new series that looks even
faintly interesting I have now got on series record. Every movie I
quite like the look of is sat on the hard drive, tapping its foot,
looking at its watch, tutting and waiting, and the piles and piles of
DVD box sets that I'll get round to one day are still there. All
staring accusingly at me, wondering why I bought them if I wasn't
even going to watch them. And there is still more than enough TV to
watch live anyway, when the fuck am I going to find the time to watch
all this? And how on earth is it going to help me? This new
golden age of television is
not relaxing in the least.
Back when we only
had four channels, you could count the number of 'must-see' TV shows
on your hands (probably just one of them) and I honestly can't
remember any of them now. Sure, there was Star Trek, Red Dwarf,
Quantum Leap, Battlestar Galactica and so on, but you could miss as
many episodes of those as you liked and still be able to follow the
plot. Try doing that with Breaking Bad, Madmen or even my favourite
daytime guilty pleasure, Doctors (which used to be perfect for not
having to keep up with before it decided it needed running plots).
I
blame these two for ruining a perfectly good show
I tried it with
Happy Valley, series one was on before I had a recordy-box-thing, on
a band practice night, so I didn't see it. I thought I'd have a go at
series 2, and immediately had no idea what the hell was going on. It
seemed to me that the amazing twist on the
detective-with-difficult-personal-life-who-doesn't-play-by-the-rules
trope was just that she was a lady, and northern, hardly a twist, and
quite unnecessary. After a couple of episodes I realised that that
was actually necessary, and stopped being an accidental mansplaining
chauvinist southern-centric dickhead about it. Anyhow, thanks to my
wife having seen series one, I found out the back story without
having to watch another six hours of 'must-see' TV (or regret it as
much as asking my stepdaughter a brief 'what the hell is going on
here?' question about Hollyoaks which led to the longest and most
unnecessary roundabout explanation I have ever heard).
I
know who these people are, but it gets a bit hazy after that
Over the years I
have learned to live with my
always-threatening-to-topple-over-and-flood-the-living-room pile of
books to read, and it's digital equivalent on my kindle. I have even
gotten to grips with the seemingly infinite amount of DVDs I have
spilling out from every place in the house that isn't already filled
with books or records. Having the added stress of the long blue list
with 'unwatched' flashing at me every time I idly flick into the
recorded section of my tellybox and no clue as to which will be the
thing you will have to have seen to understand twitter that week is
no laughing matter (who am I kidding, of course it's a laughing
matter, it's hysterical).
Sadly, the truth is
that now, if you want to keep up with all the many things that you
are supposed to have seen, you will probably need to watch at least 4
hours of TV a day and then not talk to anybody about it for fear of
spoilers (fuck spoilers, if you are surprised that Walter White dies
at the end of Breaking Bad you are an idiot, and if you didn't want
to know that Han Solo gets killed by his son you should have just
paid to go to the cinema before now you tight-fisted chimpknuckle).
I
did say there were spoilers didn't I?
I have, in the last
couple of weeks, deliberately not started watching at least four new
series that I thought I might like, I didn't even record them
'just-in-case' and I am not going to even look at iPlayer. I realise
now that the reason I wrote more songs, read more books, heard more
music and did more things when I was younger is because I could watch
a whole week's worth of good telly in a couple of hours. I would like
to say I can go back there (unlike the famous 'we don't own a telly'
types and their netflix-laden tablets, lying twats) but I doubt it, I
like telly, and becoming my father is really no bad thing (apart from
the voting tory bit).
This
is not my Dad, but if he was I wouldn't skewer him with a lightsaber
