I watched the series premier of Scorpion last week, and blogged about how I was concerned that the time may have passed for the nerd drama> Too much of the audience knows the tech is fake these days, and it spoils their enjoyment of the show when they do silly stuff.
In the week since then, I have returned to that thought a few times in retrospective. I revisit the idea that nothing all at on TV is very real. The prime time network dramas are filled with unrealistic technology and actions, but we all focus on the ones we know. On hospital dramas, I’m sure they make all sorts of errors that must infuriate doctors and nurses, and even orderlies. On police dramas, there must be people from that world that watch those shows, constantly nitpicking, or else just laugh the inaccuracies off. Even I know a DNA test can take a lot longer than 4 hours.
In nerd dramas like Scorpion they may try to be realist, but in the end, I think I change my verdict. I have decided it is not a deal breaker after all. I accept the break from reality and still find a way to enjoy the action and plot of the show.
I’ve just watched episode 2, and the writers did an excellent job at using up almost all the remaining nerd stereotypes that they didn’t get to last week. All the cliche technology bits were used, like bouncing the bad guy’s IP all over the world. I suppose not every computer user knows that isn’t really how it works.
I found myself enjoying the show anyway. I realized that all the other shows I enjoy do equally impossible things ever week. Fiction doesn’t need to be based in reality. Even the reality shows are not really that real either. I may spend the next week taking note of how fake my TV playlist is. It may be fun to start paying attention to how silly the shows I still watch really are. Since I’m trying to blog daily – it may provide me some new topics as the rest of the reason returns, and the new pilots appear.
Earlier this year as part of my therapy and progress, I decided to to test the abilities of my newly medicated, less obsessive mind to cut way back on my TV addiction. I stopped watching a lot of shows. This is premier week for Network shows. It’s my first September since I cut off almost 50% of the ones I watched cold turkey last June.
Not since the first ATI All-in-Wonder graphics card I configured with Snapstream, have I ever bailed on a series I enjoyed, or missed an episode, or watched them out of sequence. Addiction may not be the right world, but it was an obsessive trait I only began to understand once it lessened. I was watching over 40 hours of TV a week.
One day I made the decision and cut Bones, Hawaii 5.0, Mythbusters, and more.
I felt actual loss.
TV is back and I’m feeling a bit weird not recording some of them. Withdrawal symptoms.
I can try to watch less, but in the end watching TV is who I am. I’m Frogstar.