Sometimes, I get worried over my obsession with certain tv series. I get so hung up on them that I wait as impatiently for the next episode as other wait for payday, reading forums and fansites or listening to podcasts. It just doesn’t feel right. Or, rather, it didn’t feel right. Until now.
Whenever a new episode has been aired of »Lost«, me and my girlfriend download it, make a nice dinner, re-hash last weeks episode on Lostpedia, disconnect all telephones and sit down in grave seriousness watching it.
My earliest memories of such obsession was when Swedish television aired the original »V« series back in the eighties. And »Miami Vice« of course. Back then, I was still a kid, but a couple of years on the same behaviour repeated itself with »Wiseguy«, »21 Jump Street« and a number of crime dramas.
It was okay then but as a grown-up, I have more trouble coming to terms with being so enthusiastic for simple productions of pop culture. I haven’t exactly talked about my behaviour in public.
I’m beginning to rethink my stance after listening to a wonderful episode of »This American Life«. It’s one of my favourite podcasts, but in episode »What I Learned From Television« it really excells.
»What I Learned From Television« is recorded live in front of an audience and came about after the TAL gang started producing a TV show and someone had shouted »Judas!« to TAL host Ira Glass. Radio fans aren’t that keen on television, it seems.
In one magic moment, Mates of State start playing »California«, the theme from »O.C.«, and Ira jokes about when the series referenced This American Life once and how surreal he thought it was to be mentioned in one of his favourite shows. He continues:
“Radio is so different from television. As we were making our television show, people kept asking me which is better. People keep asking me all the time now, “So which is it gonna be? Is it going to be radio or TV, which is better?” like we’re all gonna have to choose sides because there’s gonna be a big war, you know… In fact, actually there was a war and radio kind of lost that war. And the fact is that radio and TV, they’re good for different things. Radio is so intimate and personal and TV can be so weirdly grand in what it does. Just thinking about the O.C. and the other shows I love, I realize my feelings about my favourite TV shows are exactly the same as my feelings about the shows I love on the radio.
The things I love, I love completely and it’s totally personal. My feelings about these shows are personal in the deepest possible way. And… I’m a kind of dorky fan when it comes to stuff. Uhm, my wife is here in this room so maybe it’s a bad time to be telling this story… Every week the O.C. comes on and my wife Anaheed and I sit on the couch, when the theme comes on, “California”, we sing along with it in full voice. Think about what that takes… I’m 47 years old, I’m a grown ass man, we’re a married couple, you know… Sober! We are sober, singing the theme to a Fox show… And I gotta say, every single weeks it makes me love my wife, and love TV, and love everything in the world all at once and last week when O.C. went off TV I cried and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
I just want to scream »YES! YES! This is how it is!«.
Of course tv can be personal and important. Of course it’s okay to recite lines from »Miami Vice« and know the names of middle-managers in the strange corporations and foundations of »Lost«. You don’t have to be ashamed to go home from work actually looking forward to the new episode of »Burn Notice«.
It felt good hearing it from Ira.
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