All this week, we’re taking a look at the past, present, and future of Peak TV, the current, overabundant TV golden age in which we live.
So, hey. Can we talk for a second? Real quick, I promise. I just need to be honest with you. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it all, and, well… I’m not even really sure how to say this. Okay, fine. Here goes: It looks like I’m never going to get around to watching that show you like.
It’s not that I think it will be a bad show. Believe me, I’ve heard your breathless declarations about it. All of them. I’m quite sure it’s a perfectly nice show about a depressed man who is very good at his chosen profession or illegal activity but is still very sad and cheats on his wife a lot, or one about a murder that is very creepy and/or sexy and/or reveals itself to be part of a wide-reaching government and/or organized crime operation, or a comedy that periodically decides to stop being funny and start getting real to the point it will make me physically uncomfortable and cause me to question just what the hell I’m doing with my life right now. I know how much you enjoy it, and how it’s in danger of getting canceled, and how “everyone” should watch it. I still remember the face you made when I told you I hadn’t seen it. I thought someone behind me had just been stabbed.
The problem is that I just don’t have time for another show. I’m already watching Game of Thrones, Fargo, Halt and Catch Fire, Veep, Silicon Valley, New Girl, Billions, Bob’s Burgers, Last Man on Earth, Zoo, Mr. Robot, Black-ish, You’re the Worst, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Carmichael Show, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Master of None, Archer, Peaky Blinders, The Americans, South Park, Broad City, Drunk History, Review, Documentary Now, American Crime Story, Baskets, The Night Of, Vice Principals, Preacher, Catastrophe, BoJack Horseman, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, House of Cards, Narcos, and about a dozen other shows I’m forgetting, in addition to the new ones this fall. And even with all of those — Rick and Morty, too! — I still feel like I’m missing so much. It’s getting to be a quality of life thing at this point.
What? No, I will not stop watching Zoo. How dare you.
If you think about it, me not watching this show is actually good for our friendship. Because if I do start watching it, there are only three ways this can go, and two of them are bad.
– I love it and rip through the three seasons I’m behi-… Wait, three seasons? I have to watch 30 episodes or more to catch up? Jesus. Okay, fine. My point is that I could love it and rip through it and we bond even more over our shared love of it.
– I think it’s fine but I secretly resent you for making me watch it.
– I don’t like it and things get really awkward between us, because now I have to re-think everything I thought I knew about you (“He likes that?”), and then you’ll be doing the same to me, and we’ll have that hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives. Every time one of us thinks about seeing a movie after that, we’ll go to ask the other if they want to see it, but then this show will sneak into our minds and we’ll think twice about it. Everything will be ruined.
In a way, it was kind of rude for you to even make this suggestion. Think of the position you’re putting me in here. You’re pressuring me to give up a huge chunk of my free time — and really, who even has “free time” anymore in our always-connected, never-really-off-the-clock world? — to watch this show that has almost a 70 percent chance of tearing us apart. I’m supposed to give up the next few weekends for that? To potentially ruin our friendship?
See, this is your problem. You only think about you. You make these crazy declarations like “You have to watch…” whatever show you’ve just discovered, or “Let’s all go on a cruise next week,” and you don’t think about anyone else before you make them. Like, when have you heard me talk about wanting to go on a cruise? When have you even seen me on a boat? I’ll tell you when. Never. Because cruises are a stupid activity for lunatics. Really? I’m supposed to go out in the open water on a floating petri dish filled with overweight people in Hawaiian shirts and pray a mechanical failure or rogue wave doesn’t leave us stranded and bobbing in shark-infested waters for a week? And pay through the nose for the privilege of doing so? And this is supposed to be fun? Well, it doesn’t sound very fun to me. But you would know that if you ever bothered to ask me instead of just flying off with these plans to drop everything because “the sea is calling.” God. I guess some people never change.
So no, I will not be watching that show you like. Quite frankly, I’m a little offended you even asked. I’m willing to put it in the past if you are, though, just for the sake of our friendship. It means too much to me to throw it away over something like this.
But seriously, as I was saying, you really need to watch BoJack Horseman. It’s incredible.
