I Like to Watch

Aug. 12, 2007 | In calculus, I hit the wall when variables started approaching infinity. Up until that point in my math classes, I had been very brave. I held my breath and sallied forth as more and more unknown variables and steps and bizarre rotating parabolas were thrown into the picture. But when infinity came into play, I threw up my hands. Even though I knew that you could just move infinity around like any other variable (although it doesn't obey the usual rules of algebra, oh no, that would be too easy!), even though I realized that you didn't need to grasp infinity in order to solve most equations, you merely had to politely step around it and tolerate its unknowable existence, I still couldn't handle it. I felt overwhelmed by the sight of that little 8, lying on its side, helplessly slouching toward some unfathomable abyss ... Black holes... Outer space...

That's the unhinged state I've revisited lately whenever I so much as glance at the TV schedule, in all of its unbounded vastness. The networks churn out new summer programming every few weeks, a nonstop flow of specials and miniseries and brand-new game shows. Add to that the never-ending proliferation of Little Cable Channels That Could, with their unrelenting determination to find and produce the next "Sopranos" or "Angels in America." And now, even channels like National Geographic and IFC and Animal Planet and the Weather Channel are gaining confidence in themselves, and whipping out their own little dramas and reality shows, shows about film school students and meerkats and really bad tornadoes. And it all adds up to an uncountable, ever-expanding volume of televised creations, scattered randomly (if that's possible) across an inelegant, badly behaving, dizzyingly limitless universe.

That smiling TiVo icon shouldn't look so peppy and enthusiastic, he should have big horn-rimmed glasses and the dour, exhausted scowl of a math professor who's been squinting at the same impossibly intricate equation for five months straight. Poor little guy, stumbling around, shaking from too much black coffee, unable to pull his eyes from that fallen 8, on its side, slipping into the unknown, the massive nothingness, stretching for trillions and trillions of light years in every direction ... Limitless ... Expanding endlessly...

World without end, amen!
All I'm saying is, there's a lot on TV -- too much, arguably. And each show demands a total commitment: "Damages," "Saving Grace," "The Closer," "John From Cincinnati," "The Kill Point," "Mad Men," "The Company," "Rescue Me," "Big Love"? It's the summer, for Christ's sake! What ever happened to leaving us the hell alone all summer, so we might wander outside for a second and read a book or have a conversation or sip on something cold and boozy? How can we stop and sample summer's sweet songs, when our TiVos' to-do list grows beyond any assigned value?

People complain about the fact that there are too many reality shows on TV. But reality shows are the natural numbers of the TV lineup: countable, well ordered. They're a limited set with just a taste of drama, but no important story lines to keep track of, so you can watch or ignore them. Add, subtract, divide, no big deal!

But just try watching "Big Love" or "Rescue Me" when you've skipped four or five episodes. What the hell is happening? Who is that weird waitress, and why is Bill making eyes at her? Why would Tommy hand off a baby to insane Sheila? The eyes glaze over, the mind reels, infinity laughs its nasty laugh, right in your face.

OK. I know I'm the only one who sees my TiVo as a massive, constantly replenishing black hole of an in box. But is anyone else out there tired of "Big Love"? I was finally getting used to my three sister wives, and now Bill is making eyes at some pie-slinging tart? I can't handle it. And "Rescue Me" has gone from straining credulity to taking a baseball bat to our kneecaps, over and over and over again. Uncle! Uncle!

God bless the good people behind "Damages," who know exactly how to keep me from wasting my time: Show me the same depressing scene where our fallen heroine Ellen (Rose Byrne) is covered in her fiancé's blood at the start of every single episode, and I'll be sure not to watch the rest.

I really couldn't believe it when the same bloody scene showed up at the start of the third episode. Fine, maybe she was set up. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe she only meant to tap him lightly with her Statue of Liberty bookend. (Get it? The freedom of high capitalism is his undoing!) But honestly, 13 hours of viewing, just to find out how Patty pegs Ellen with the crime, or tortures her into committing it? One brutal crime, stretched into infinity -- or what feels like infinity, but is in fact bounded and knowable and therefore carries with it far fewer dizzy spells and headaches and emergency doughnuts.

Next page: "The Company," duller than a day at the office; "Conchords" lifts off