TV

Speaking of crying, there's an episode of Cheers that gets me every single time, even when I just read it. Stay with me:

The other day I was explaining to Partner about how the FOX network came to be so popular. Yesterday I decided to check out the wikipedia entry to see if I had it right (I did). While there, I was reminded of an early FOX show that I enjoyed but couldn't remember the name of. The wiki mentioned a show and an actress that I thought might be connected to the show I was thinking of, so I went to IMDB. Turns out that the show I remembered watching and enjoying was a one-season spinoff of that other show. So far so good. The show I was thinking about was Open House, which not only starred a young Ellen DeGeneres (as a man-crazy secretary - not type casting!) but also starred an actor who had one appearance in the first season of Cheers. Still on IMDB, I clicked on his name, saw the episode of Cheers ("Coach's Daughter"), then clicked on that.

In the entry about the ep, someone wrote out the transcript of three different scenes (although not the one when Diane called the man "pond scum," which I remember got the biggest laugh of the show) including the climatic scene when Coach tells his daughter not to marry that man. As I was reading the scene, tears welled up in my eyes. Such is the power of a good scene (and maybe a good visceral memory of watching the show), it can make the observer cry just by reading it. I can't think of any other scene in any other show which has had the same effect on me.

I've long had a love/hate relationship with TV. In high school, I used to stay up late watching David Letterman on weeknights, and for awhile The Young Ones on Sunday night. I had a few other favorite shows, but mostly the TV set was used as a monitor for the movies I watched on our VCR. In college, my roommates had our new faves (Star Trek:TNG and The Simpsons among them), but still the set was used more for movies than network TV.

At some point as an adult, I decided I needed a TV only as a monitor for my VCR and then DVD player, so I essentially stopped watching TV (got all my news and info from NPR, thank you very much). I must be one of the few Americans who didn't see the planes hit the WTC on 9/11, nor did I see any of the devastation from Katrina in New Orleans.

Lately I've lived in a house with all the premium channels, so I'm overloaded with choices. You'd think I might like that - and I do have quite a few favorite shows - but I actually don't like that I spend all my free time (well, most of my free time) watching the television. Hence, the love/hate relationship.

Maybe next time I'll talk about those favorites...