High Definition Family Bonding Over Dexter (The Television Show)

I’ve got one television. It sits next to a plant in my living room. The plant is more entertaining to watch and it’s far less trouble than the TV.

After a great deal of attaching wires, plugging in plugs, moving the antenna around, purchasing black boxes that take up space and collect dust, and figuring out the remote control, I now get at least six channels.

I turned the TV on yesterday evening after coming home from work. It was a rare event because I prefer listening to NPR while I get dinner ready for the dogs and me. The beauty of a radio? It doesn’t have to be watched.

But just for a change, to live on the edge and break my routine, I turned on the TV. I clicked through the six channels. Six, mind you. On one channel, I could watch Jeopardy with children as contestants. Why did we lower the bar to let children embarrass themselves on national TV? I don’t know. I have two Spanish language stations. Actors on Spanish shows sure do emote with gusto. It’s easy to get sucked into one of those dramas. The emoting—it’s like whipped cream—not much substance but you can’t stop dipping into it.

On another channel, I see there’s a ping-pong match. A doubles ping-pong match. As if it isn’t tedious enough to watch two people playing ping-pong. How did that match come about? It’s bad enough that two people got drunk one night in a bar and agreed to enter a ping-pong competition, but four of them? That’s a lot of whisky sours. I watched for a few seconds and then my neck got tired.

Two other stations sat there patiently, wearing empty black screens save for a box that said, “Lease this channel.” You can lease channels? Really? So, anyone can get his or her fifteen minutes or hour of fame. How reassuring. Ping-pong matches, a man playing a violin alone on a stage, watching chickens play checkers, bring it on.

Generally speaking, I loathe television. Watching your life go by as you click through all those channels of nothingness. A lot of the time, I can be halfway or three-quarters of the way through a show, and suddenly I’m overcome with panic. I think, “If I don’t get away from the television in the next two minutes, I’ll pull out my eyelashes.” I get up and leave the room, never finding out if the cool dude with the nice hair solved the crime.

But I’m hooked on the show, Dexter. Dexter, of all things. Probably the most gruesome show I’ve ever seen, but it’s got me enthralled. My sister, brother and I schedule TV nights to watch the show at my sister’s house, where TV viewing has moved past the tin can and string stage that I experience in my home. If one of us dawdles too long and the others have to wait before beginning the episode, we get a round of severe scolding.

And all through the show, we’re talking back to the TV, believing that Dexter is a friend of ours and the entire police station in which he works are people we are called upon to advise. We’ve come to a consensus, even. We’ve decided that his annoying new bride, Rita, must be killed.

I can be snobby about TV and talk about how little of it I watch, and that would be true. But I bond with my family over the TV shows we do watch together. Oh, don’t worry, we bond over the jigsaw puzzles we do together, the gardening chores we do together, the cooking and grilling nights, and the cultural activities that spring up here and there. But we also bond over the TV. We comment on the acting, the plot lines, and the character development. Conversation can even move into the philosophical. We engage in creative scriptwriting. We’re learning stuff about each other. Oh, yes, if there’s too much talking, we’re shushed. But, there’s always the rewind feature.

Even if my television had 32 watchable, high definition channels, it’s unlikely I’d want to sit there by myself and watch it. I suppose I’d rather watch a bad TV show with my family than sit alone and stare at that plant.

Shut up. I'm trying to watch my shows.

 

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