The good news is that the writers’ strike is over, and new episodes of my favorite shows have now returned to the airwaves. The bad news is that this influx of new programming seems to be having an inversely proportional relationship to the manageability of my life. As you may know, I’m a bit of a tv addict. The majority of what I watch is quality television, which means that my Thursday nights have turned into a burdensome night for my poor little DVR. Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, 30 Rock, and The Office are all automatically recorded on Thursday, though by the end of this season I’ll probably have given up on Grey’s, since I now feel like I’m watching it out of obligation rather than interest. (I just re-dropped Desperate Housewives from my Sunday roster because of a similar feeling.)
But these shows are not the problem. The problem is that during the strike - and, more specifically, during the week I had off for Christmas break - I rekindled ill-fated relationships with General Hospital and One Life To Live, two soap operas I hadn’t watched since my passed-out days spent on various people’s couches before getting sober. I’ve been DVRing them EVERY DAY SINCE, watching them either late at night during the week or as a marathon on the weekends. And now I cannot stop watching them. I need help. I am outing myself here as a soap opera addict because I truly believe that a person is as sick as his secrets, and that letting something like this out and asking for help is the first step towards a successful recovery.
As evidence of the effects that this brutal addiction can have on a sane, healthy person and his sentence structure, here is an instant message that came out of me recently while chatting online with a friend:
"You see, Nikolas recently lost the love of his life, Emily, when she was strangled by the Text Message Killer, and now Nikolas refuses to have his lethal brain tumor surgically removed because one of its side effects is that it allows him hallucinations of Emily, hallucinations which he can see, touch, kiss, etc., so instead he’s taking an experimental drug offered to him for $10 million by Doctor Devlin, who’s secretly leading a double life as the hitman who just tried to take out mob-boss Sonny but ended up accidentally shooting Sonny’s 10-year-old son Michael in the head instead."
[Side note: Although little Michael is still in an air-quotedly "permanent" coma, I am pleased to report that Nikolas has since decided to have his tumor removed. Don't get too excited. He's made the decision, but he hasn't had the operation yet. He finally said goodbye to Emily yesterday. It might've been touching if I hadn't been shouting at the tv for the past three months for him to just get the damn operation already.]
Now I will be the first to admit that both General Hospital and One Life To Live - and pretty much every soap I’ve ever watched - are downright crap. I’m not being immodest when I say that watching them is beneath me, and I’d venture a guess that most people who watch them probably feel the same way, albeit perhaps subconsciously. Both shows are written in a way which seems to insult the intelligence of even the most chuckleheaded of viewers and, despite a few distinguishing traits and varying levels of acting skill when handling the borderline-retarded material, all of the characters share one common characteristic which trumps all the others and which cannot be ignored. They are all dumb as a box of… um, soap.
The formula is as simple as the characters. Scenes are extremely short, playing to the limited attention spans of an MTV-influenced America. Each scene starts with a subtly bludgenous refresher of how the last scene in that particular storyline ended. How stupid are these people that they can’t remember what was said a mere handful of seconds ago? Then the conversation proceeds a few millimeters, and it becomes obvious that the scene is about to end because something is on the verge of happening. But nothing does end up happening, because right as it’s about to, the camera hovers on one of the actors just long enough to make the viewer wonder whether that actor has forgotten his or her next line, and then the scene ends. This bizarre phenomenon presents a two-fold problem. Since nearly everyone on a soap opera has any number of closeted skeletons, their long scene-ending pauses make them seem both unbelievably stupid and, perhaps more importantly, incredibly suspicious. Then, when they need to be reminded of what just transpired when we revisit them a few minutes later, the inate dimness of the other characters in the scene is underscored by their apparent obliviousness to how weird and suspicious their scenemates are acting. It’s a horrendously vicious cycle of stupidity perpetuated by stupidity.
The end result is that pretty much nothing ever happens. It’s not quite as bad on General Hospital, where the writers can use the Port Charles mafia and the titular hospital to jack up the frequency of the occurrence of situations with somewhat high stakes. And I’ll admit that there really are some talented actors on there who manage to make the writers’ most transparent stalling tactics and banal dialogue somehow seem genuine. Still though, not much ends up happening. Over on One Life To Live, however, all of it is poorly-acted crap about relationships and paternity issues and business deals and, come on, who cares? I don’t, and yet I watch. Every freakin’ day. Fortunately on DVR I can get through the two shows in about 90 minutes, but still, that’s 90 minutes a day. Clearly, I have a problem.
A friend of mine once observed that someone should edit each daily episode of every hour-long soap opera down to a 5-minute recap, which could then be viewed online. What a perfect solution! Why hasn’t anyone cashed in on this? Then I’d only have 5 minutes to catch up on every day per show, which is about how much time each episode’s loosely-defined "action" would take once you boil it down and get rid of all the fat. [I don't cook, so I apologize if my cooking metaphors are unfavorably mixed.]
It’s the deeply addictive nature of these truly sucktacular shows that simultaneously fascinates and terrifies me, mainly because I cannot entirely fathom what it is that makes them so addictive. The only theory I have is that the way I feel when I watch these shows sort of parallels the way I felt many years ago when I would do coke. I always felt like it wasn’t the actual drug itself that was making me high, because most times I found the drug itself to be rather weak and its effects fleeting. What kept me high, I think, was more the psychological awareness that I would need to do more every 15 minutes or so. I think that’s how the soaps are too. It’s obviously not any feeling of satisfaction I get from the show itself that keeps me coming back for more. On the contrary. It’s the inherently dissatisfying nature of the show and the resulting need to come back for more that keeps me coming back for more. GAH!
So now I turn to you, my faithful readers, in this my hour of need. Have any of you ever found yourselves victims of this horrifically sinister conspiracy? And if so, how did you manage to free yourself from the Vulcan death-grip it had on your soul? I am not familiar with any rehab facility that specializes in treating this particular disease, nor am I aware of any Soap Opera Addicts Anonymous meetings in the area. Therefore, dear readers, please help me. Any tips or advice or anecdotes of personal experience would be greatly appreciated. ‘Cuz now that the good tv shows are back on the air, and now that it’s so unbelievably gorgeous outside, I WANT MY FRIGGIN’ LIFE BACK!
Is that really too much to ask?
