Sock-Folding Television

When I was in college, I saw Strictly Ballroom possibly dozens of times. If I was trying to accomplish something, be it housework or an essay for class, I would sometimes put it on for sound. Oh, I’d use music, too; I’ve always been uncomfortable with silence. But there was a sort of company to using a movie, using actual voices speaking words. And if I wanted to stop for a minute, there was almost always something in the movie that was interesting enough to follow and go enjoy, and it wasn’t so new that I’d necessarily get sucked in too far to get back to what I was doing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not supporting the idea that all content should be this. I still like watching new movies and TV shows, and I still have things I’ve watched more than once that continue to engage my brain too much for me to concentrate on anything else as I watch. There are a lot of things that shouldn’t be dumbed down enough to be suitable for these purposes. Serious documentaries, for starters; anything about important current events should not be ideal for these purposes. You need the information, and that’s something you should be properly concentrating on.

I would also say that there’s something to be said for such things when you’re in emotional distress. There’s a routine that helps with it. You know all the words. You know all the story beats. And you can even recite along, if you feel the need. It makes for a world where you know the way everything will go and can make it make sense, or at least be aware of the ways it doesn’t. Even if it’s an episode you haven’t seen before of a show you use for this purpose, it will fit the pattern you’re expecting. Everything goes the way it’s supposed to.

Shows for this purpose often last a very long time. There are 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote. 271 of Perry Mason. 251 of M*A*S*H. How many episodes there are of Star Trek depends on if you’re limiting it to the original series (a scant eighty) or are expanding to the expanded universe (I’m not doing the math). So you can watch over and over without feeling as though it’s always the same thing and feeling the immediate need to change. You can also pick and choose a few favourites if that’s your speed or just run the series as you go.

Not everyone can do this. There are some people who are just always going to get sucked into the show no matter how many times they’ve seen it. And it is kind of weird how many of these shows are mysteries. Still, if you didn’t know before, you’re not the only person who does this. And if you’re a TV executive who knows that people does this, that doesn’t mean we want every show to do this. And if we want a show that does this, we prefer it to be long-running and not canceled after a single season of eight episodes. After all, I stopped using Strictly Ballroom after about a single school year.