TV: it's not ALL bad, and an ode to the bad boys

A year or so ago, a guy I knew from facebook disparaged me for writing in this blog a review of a favourite TV show. I forget which show it was; Man From Mars, maybe. He said something about wasting my intelligent brain on watching and reviewing TV. I felt a little ashamed. Sure, the common attitude among so-called smart people is that TV is garbage, junk-food for brains and all that negative stuff. I automatically felt chastised and embarrassed by his words.

There's a lot of crap TV out there. A LOT. Probably 95 per cent of TV is worse than swill. But now and then you find a show that really strikes a chord, that you look forward to watching all week and kick yourself when you forget to set the DVR for it.

There have been a good number of shows like that for me. Twin Peaks was probably the first big one. I was 28 or 29 when that came on and I was obsessed with it, even though I didn't always "get" it. But who did? I mean, come on, that dancing dwarf? I bet David Lynch didn't even get that one.

I adored Boston Legal. Laughed and cried many times with that one. James Spader blew me away as Alan Shore, and the chemistry between him and William Shatner made them probably the best TV "couple" ever. If real men could relate to one another like those two TV characters did, the world would be a much better place.

Deadwood was, in my opinion, the best TV series of all time. The writing is brilliant. Beyond brilliant. It's truly inspired. The actors were all perfectly cast, but especially Ian McShane as Al Swearingen, who was probably the most complex and interesting character ever on TV. The sets and costumes and everything about it were pitch perfect. The only thing I didn't like was how the series was cancelled so suddenly, with no resolution to so many of the storylines. They had originally promised two full-length feature films to come after the series ended, but that never happened and now all the actors are busy with other things and the idea has been abandoned. Such a shame. (Hey! Maybe David Milch - my literary hero - could write the conclusion as a novel! David? Are you listening??)

Lost is a huge one for me too, although I confess that the storylines are so complicated and the characters' intricate interrelations and all the time-jumping sometimes confuses me. I'm a simple kinda gal and I don't like having to keep track of so much random stuff in order to really get the full value of a show. But I'm looking forward to the final season. Really anxious to find out how they'll tie it all up in the end.

For a while there I was obsessed with "Man From Mars." Watched the American version first, but then got hooked on the British original which was worlds better. Comparing the two, you really see how America's approach to entertainment is almost more about packaging and appearance than it is about what it should be: character and story. The British series was full of plain and even unattractive people, but somehow that made the show better and much more approachable. You felt like the characters were people you might meet in your daily life, not some impossibly beautiful actors plunked into worlds they'd never really see. And the writing and characterization, the acting and the grittiness were infinitely more appealing in the British original too.

House is another favourite. A bitter, pain-riddled, drug-addled (and now psychotic) genius whose character is so well-written that we love him even though someone like that in real life would probably not live much past his twenties, due to some act of violence against his nasty, misanthropic self.

Gregory House, Al Swearengen (Deadwood), Alan Shore (Boston Legal), Sawyer (Lost), Gene Hunt (Man From Mars). I seem to have a fascination with nasty complex male characters who have some wee redeeming quality that keeps me wondering, week to week, what they're going to do next. (Don't worry...this doesn't hold true in my real life!)

And that brings me to my most recent obsession: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yes...you read that correctly. I find myself gritting my teeth and clenching my gut muscles in order to admit that, over the last several weeks, I've watched all seven seasons of the Buffy series from start to finish. And. I. LOVED. It. A hurricane might have wiped out the entire east coast and I don't know about it because I haven't had the TV on in all that time.

And if any of you reading this were fans of the show, or even casual viewers, I bet it will be a no-brainer for you to figure out who the complex nasty male character in that show is that appealed to me so much. Of course, it was Spike. Couldn't get enough of him. I was glad when Angel left the show and Spike took over as the Head Vamp In Charge. Compared to Spike's robust Guinness, Angel was watered-down Bud Lite. Angel's dark broodiness was boring next to Spike's invigorating, joyous, evil energy. Other than that, I loved all the other characters equally, but Spike made the screen crackle when he was on. Nasty, lovely boy.

Now, I was reluctant to admit my admiration for this show that, on the surface, sounds like some light teenage fluff crap with a low budget, bad acting, worse writing and very little to say for itself. I mean... "Buffy??" At least, that's what I'd always thought about it, because I never watched it when it was being aired. Not a single episode. All I ever caught was the last ten minutes or so of the series finale, and all I could remember of that was a school bus and a big hole in the ground.

But lately, here and there, I kept coming across comments by people online who referenced the show in surprisingly positive tones. Again and again I read these almost reverential comments, so of course, being the curious sort that I am, I started to wonder what all the fuss was about.

So one day I figured I'd see if I could get hold of the first season and check it out. Can you say "hooked" boys and girls? From the very first episode I couldn't get enough.

Buffy was really good TV. I mean REALLY good. I'm no TV critic, so I can't comment on what exactly it was that made it so good. Websites I browsed on the subject said stuff about metaphors and lofty things like homages to other tv shows, movies and literature. Of course, those guys are getting paid to write stuff like that. I'm just a simple consumer of goods, in this case the goods being a TV show.

What I can say is that, in my opinion, it was far and away the characters that made the show such a huge success and such a favourite of my own. You just can't fake that. There's got to be such an incredible rush when you know you have great writing, you've got an incredible director and then, like manna from heaven, you happen to find just exactly the right actors to play each role so that the whole thing becomes like a symphony, with every note played just exactly the way it should be. I cannot possibly imagine other actors playing any of those roles.

Well, except for Angel and, huge irony, Buffy herself. I never really "bought" Sarah Michelle Geller as Buffy or David Boreanaz as Angel (although he's much better in his own series). I'm not sure why I didn't like SMG as Buffy. Possibly it was as simple as the fact that whoever they hired to do her wardrobe in the first two seasons made her look more like a thirty-year-old real estate agent than a high-school student. It really was bizarre. Other than that, it's hard to put a finger on it. Maybe it was that she never really seemed to disappear into her role like all the other actors on the show did. She always seemed to be just an actor playing a role.

But getting back to the topic... If so many smart people think television is an intellectual black hole with no redeeming value, why is it so popular? Surely television is just an extension of the storytelling tradition that stretches all the way back to antiquity, probably back further than language itself. People like to be told stories. People like to be presented with interesting, exciting, sympathetic characters and situations that let them escape their dull lives or even find some bit of inspiration or insight.

When done well, television can be art. No less than movies or novels or music. It can entertain and educate and move. No one who ever watched Alan Shore give a final summation on Boston Legal could have gone to bed without a few deep thoughts in their heads. Hugh Laurie's House has said some Big Important Things too...things that need to be said, even though we're all gagged by (and choking on) Political Correctness. We let a fictional TV character say those difficult and sometimes painful things, because they really, really need to be said. And even when it's simply entertainment, no Big Topics, surely the tears I shed so many times throughout the Buffy series were signs that some kind of chemistry was taking place. Something was reaching me, the critical human part of me, not just the couch potato wasting time in the dark.

Or maybe it was just hormones.