I Like to Watch

HBO's "Tell Me You Love Me" dishes up whiny, unhappy people not holding hands. Plus: Why nobody (but VH1) loves Chachi.

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: HBO, Sex, TV, VH1, Arts & Entertainment, Reality TV, Heather Havrilesky, I Like to Watch

Sept. 2, 2007 | In the '70s, everyone on TV was happy and in love. Laverne had Shirley's back, Joanie loved Chachi, Mrs. C loved Mr. C, Tom Bradford loved Abby, Blake loved Krystal, and Mr. and Mrs. Hart necked and swooned so much, it made your skin crawl. Back then, I longed for shows about bad, miserable people, bickering and rolling their eyes and getting depressed.

Sure, you could find them at the movie theater, where everyone was falling apart ("Ordinary People") or getting divorced ("Kramer vs. Kramer") or becoming crippled for life ("Ice Castles") or falling straight into the San Andreas fault ("Earthquake"). But on TV, it was nothing but smiles and sweetness, all tied up with a big, important lesson at the end.

Thirty years later, I finally get all of the miserable people talking about their crappy marriages that I've always longed for, and I hate their guts.

Misery loves company
Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. Am I impossible to please, God, or do you just enjoy messing with me? Do I play the blame game too much? And if I do, isn't that really your fault?

Did you make HBO's "Tell Me You Love Me" (premieres 9 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Sept. 9), a show that's supposed to be groundbreaking and realistic and provocative, just to teach me a lesson? Did you do it to show me that, if you combined all of the things I'd love to see on TV -- realism, darkness, unhappy couples, explicit sex, therapy -- the experience would land somewhere between a flat tire and a root canal?

Since the rest of you haven't seen this show yet, let's use our powers of imagination for a minute. First, imagine the least communicative but most defensive person you've ever dated (or married). Imagine being forced to attend couples therapy with this person. The long silences? The frustrated sighs? The rolling eyes? Good. Now imagine the therapist speaking, saying something completely obvious, so obvious it makes you cringe just to hear it. "Did you tell him you felt that way?" she says. Now picture you and your ball and chain grumbling, writing out a check for $200, and then yelling at each other all the way home.

Now you're close to understanding how it feels to watch "Tell Me You Love Me." OK, you probably already know that it's a show about three couples who are going to see a therapist, and you've probably read about the X-rated sex scenes, where we see the actors either having sex or coming so close that it hardly matters either way. We watch as one wife gives her husband a hand job, and unless they spent a fortune on CGI effects, the actress appears to be fumbling with the actor's assets. I know you'll tune in just to see that, just like you sat through "The Brown Bunny" just to see if Chloë Sevigny actually blows that overly indulged troublemaker Vincent Gallo. And yes, it's all very realistic, but not very hot, thanks to the fact that these are grouchy, humorless people whom we'd rather see hitting each other in the head with two-by-fours.

Apparently this show is considered groundbreaking due to some combination of bare testicles and the fact that every single scene ends with an awkward silence, a depressed stare into the middle distance, or a deep sigh. The couples go to see the therapist, the therapist asks them questions, and they mumble and stutter and stare at their shoes. Do these people even know each other? If this is how couples therapy really looks, then, in the immortal words of Valerie Cherish, I don't want to see that.

Even in scenes where groups of friends are hanging out, they're all nasty and confrontational, and they all make each other uncomfortable at every turn. Jaime (Michelle Borth), a single woman who's going through a hard time, tells her friend she believes in marriage. "Why? What is wrong with you?" her friend responds, and she's not being funny. (No one is ever being funny, about anything.) In the same episode, a couple goes to a game night at a friend's house, then fights in front of the group, but no one makes a joke to ease the tension. (An awkward, uncomfortable game night? Sign me up!) In another episode, the same couple gets together for brunch with the wife's sister, and the sister loudly proclaims that they shouldn't get together anymore, because it's pointless and it's no fun. Hey, we know just how you feel.

Call it realism in an attempt to excuse the lack of artful details or creative touches, but the truth is, real groups of people don't behave this way. Real groups of people laugh things off. Think of Tony Soprano. He might say something harsh, in spite of himself, but if other people are around, he makes a joke, tosses back his drink, plays it off. That's part of what's heartbreaking and melancholy about the man, and part of what made "The Sopranos" engrossing to watch.

"Tell Me You Love Me" features lackluster characters we know exactly one thing about: She can't get pregnant. He's frustrated with her. She loves him but wants more sex. He won't have sex but can't talk about it. Whether we're watching the middle-aged couple not having sex and not talking about not having sex or enduring another argument between the 30-something couple who are trying to get pregnant, it's the same thing, over and over. Stuck in the bear trap of these seriously monotonous lives, I'd gladly chew through my paw to get out.

After watching his wife pee on a stick and then mope for the 50th time (and yes, we get to see the pee-and-mope routine, too), the 30-something husband, Palek, says what we're all thinking: "I know we're not pregnant, but we're not sick, we're not dying! Get some perspective!"

But no one has any perspective on this show, not even the therapist. And no one says anything funny, or concrete, or strange, or insightful. No one is even confused! Everyone knows exactly what's going on, but no one wants to talk about it.

Oh yeah, and sometimes they make out. But it's gross, because I hate them.

Next page: Scott Baio's not so happy days