An Appeal to the Universe

Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do not introduce me to another TV show. Not to Firefly, or Prison Break, or The Apprentice, or The Amazing Race, or Queer as Folk, or Studio 60, or to Full House, or The West Wing, or to Quintuplets. I just finished watching the 1st season of Desperate Housewives, and while the season finale sucked enough to not make me want to watch the 2nd season, I'm beginning to review how many hours I spent lovingly gazing at the TV screen as this near-soap opera warmly lit up my beaming face, and I don't find the review to be an entirely comfortable one.

I remember well my first experience of getting attached to a TV series. During, I think, winter quarter of 2005, Julie Yerganian stuck the first disk of Roswell into our DVD player attached to our 3" in diamater TV pillbox and proceeded to let the magic of alien teenager trouble envelop Mary Kate and me. It was fascinating! There was that angsty dude, and the ditzy girl, and although I couldn't for the life of me remember the names of the characters while I was watching the show, that did not stop me from standing on my feet and hollering at the TV screen when necessary.

"WATCH OUT FOR THE MEAN SECURITY MAN, EXPRESSIONLESS ALIEN!"
"UGH, WHY DON'T YOU STOP TALKING, BLONDE GIRL?"
"KILL THE BLONDE MEAN ALIEN, TALL BLONDE ALIEN!"

and so on and so forth.

Every weekend the supernatural glow of the television screen would fill our room as Mary Kate, Julie, and I devotedly hung on to every word the angsty alien teenagers had to say. Sure, in the back of my mind, there was a nagging thought telling me that I WAS watching a TV show where one of the guys couldn't act any emotion, another girl always had a pained look on her face, one of the aliens ALWAYS was a bitch, and another tortured alien on the show couldn't be anything but...tortured. Nevertheless, I put these reasonable complaints aside as I watched all 3 seasons of the show. My devotion was otherworldly and all-consuming, to the point that when no one was in the room I'd read the summary of all the episodes on the back of the DVD box so I could know what would happen before I watched it.

After that, I had to take a year hiatus from TV shows in order to process all the TV goodness I had been exposed to. However, in June 2006 I was introduced to LOST. More like, Mary Kate was watching one episode, I was finished with finals, I didn't want to start packing, so I stole all the DVDs one day from her and watched the entire season in 2 days. 2 days. I had no life. Whoever bought the season and let room 633 borrow it committed a serious error, since I became a ravenous, TV series watching machine. The other serious error they committed was leaving before I could borrow the 2nd season from her.

You know who you are. Watch your back. I don't let go of grudges easily.

LOST, for me, had the perfect combination of supernatural + danger + bad dialogue + mystery to keep me watching. Another added plus was that I recognized the pregnant girl who was also on Roswell. Consequently, I kept on referring to her by her Roswell name instead of her LOST name, thereby cementing my suspicion that daughters really do grow up to be like their mothers, since my mom persists in calling our local Macy's "May Company," the store it used to be 10 years ago.

And now Stacy started me on Desperate Housewives. The past week or so, I've walked around inserting Desperate Housewives speeches and voices into every day activities. Which is perfect, since I've hardly left the house, but making the mystery enter my mundane life proves to be more of a challege, but still surmountable. Like

(in spoiled housewife's voice) I really think someone stole the napkin holder
(in screwed up but outwardly perfect housewife's voice) Don't be ridiculous
(in awkward yet adorable housewife's voice) No, let's listen to spoiled housewife. It's not on the table, so it's got to be SOMEWHERE.
(in the used to be business woman housewife) You're right, akward yet adorable housewife. Let's try to figure this out.

I don't think I'm going to continue watching this show, but I'm worried. What if there's a TV show out there that can just as swiftly and lethally deliver the excitement and brain degeneration I crave? What if I find it? What if I unwittingly become the pawn of major TV channel corporations? What if I give up school to watch TV? What if all I'm going to do in life is watch TV?

I'm leaving CA on December 31st. In Chicago, I plan on making a drastic lifestyle change, which involves no TV shows. Except on weekends. And maybe The Office. And ones I can watch for free on the internet.

That's all!

UPDATE: Stacy just went and got me the second season of Desperate Housewives for my birthday because she is the best friend a girl could have. That up there about not watching the second season was a total front. Stop being so nice to me people!