Young Talent Time was a could not miss in my primary school years. I did admire the people close to my own age who were so confident and talented but really I just enjoyed the singing and dancing.
Press Gang was part of my early teenage years. British kids running their school paper but uncovering crooks along the way. My brother gave me a copy of all the seasons a few years ago and it was great going back and watching it again. Maybe I saw a bit of myself in Linda. She was intelligent and organised but didn't always know how to communicate well so came across as bit bossy. And of course there was the Spike and Linda romance ... will they, wont they?
I had long discussions with my parents about how I was being left out at school because I didn't watch Beverly 90210 and couldn't contribute to the lunch time discussions. Eventually they relented and Dylan and Brenda and the gang raised topics in my teenage head that I hadn't thought about and started pondering.
Felicity and I entered university at about the same time. There was something reassuring about hearing her thought processes. She too was unsure of her decisions. My brother and I would often watch it late at night together.
I began to think in the unique way that Dawson, Joey and Pacey talk after the birth of MiniMe. A friend lent me Dawson's Creek on DVD while I was breastfeeding so I entered the make believe world of Dawson's Creek for few months.
When Mum was sick U2, my brother and I watched lots of Scrubs together. In Mum's final days it must of looked strange to the nursing staff that we sat in front of the portable DVD players whilst Mum slept watching a show that made light of hospitals and laughed at Dr JD and Turks antics. But it helped, laughter is good medicine.
In the time after Mum died I ploughed through Gilmore Girls, a story of a mother and daughter. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to name my next daughter Lorelei! It made me thankful for the mother/daughter relationship I had and contemplate the ones ahead of me.
There have been many more shows that I have
Lately it has been Offspring. Something about it hits the right note. In some ways it feels a bit more like reading a book when you can hear Nina's thoughts too, you know more about her. And she too is fraught with indecision.
But I feel like the love affair is coming to an end. Now that Offspring has ended for this season, Masterchef is almost over and Packed the Rafters has gone AWOL I am left to decide what I will spend my time on in the evenings and surprisingly the thought running through my head is to give up the beloved box. My time would be better spent and better enjoyed elsewhere I think. Books, crafting, sewing, phone calls to friends, blogging .... the options are endless.
What is your relationship to the box? Could you go without it? What would you miss?
Ooh a courageous thing to think about! We had no TV when we first married for a couple of years ... it was good .. but those were the days before the exhaustion of parenthood! I guess we manage TV-watching now by mostly watching DVDs or recording only a couple of shows to watch each week, that way we are not at the mercy of TV programming. Most nights we only watch one short episode of something ... currently M*A*S*H but in the past Gilmore Girls (love) and other good series.
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