I Like to Watch

Sept. 30, 2007 | Sally Field is right that mothers really should rule the world. Mothers, as we all know, feel more empathy than other human beings. We love more completely. We're overflowing with compassion and understanding.

But that's not all. Since I became a mother, food tastes better. I can smell the faintest whiff of fresh lime, squeezed into a glass, from across a crowded room. I can hear a pin drop in the house across the street. I can see new colors I never saw before. Lost kittens show up at my doorstep with stunning regularity, because they know how deeply in tune with the universe and all of its creatures I am. They look at me with their big, wet eyes and meow, and I feel a deep sadness, deeper than the deepest ocean! If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any goddamned lost kittens in the first place.

But there would be lots and lots of houses filled with cats and cat hair and cat toys and enormous carpeted cat trees, and we'd get tax breaks for doggie daycare costs, and we'd be at war with Mex-EE-coh and Moor-EH-tain-ee-a and KEYR-geez-stan right now, because those countries treat their kitties and doggies like total shit.

Mom's the word
I'm not suggesting that mothers are unfit to rule the world or anything, I'm merely pointing out that people with deep wells of compassion aren't always that practical. When I was pregnant last summer, just for example, I waddled onto a busy four-lane street to save a tiny, tiny kitten who was slowly and blindly toddling across, "Frogger"-style. Yoda was just two weeks old, and he was buff-colored and had big, pretty blue eyes. I washed the fleas out of his hair and took him to the vet. Then I set my alarm and fed him drops of kitten formula every two hours, as instructed. I would wrap him up like a tiny burrito and wipe the snot off his face, and he'd purr and blink at me with gratitude, and I loved that little bugger with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns.

One week later, he died while we were at the vet's office. He had only started looking ill that morning, but it turns out that trying to save 2-week-old kittens is a little bit like putting that injured bird into a box until he "feels better" or sending letters to that really swell guy on death row.

Building on last week's discussion of emotionally manipulative shows like "E.R." and "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice," it suddenly strikes me that most TV shows are just like bionic kittens. They're on an evil mission to toy with our emotions until we're all as dazed and impractical as a big pregnant woman, crying her eyes out in a vet's office. Those bad TV producers just sit by the side of busy streets and send their little robot kitties into traffic, one by one. We dash out to save them, over and over again, but it always ends badly.

Hello, Kitty!
But then, people who love shows like "Brothers & Sisters" (10 p.m. EDT Sundays on ABC) must really enjoy playing in traffic. Or that's what I thought after I previewed Sunday night's season premiere (Warning: There are some minor spoilers here. If you're a fan of this show or even remotely care about what happens on the premiere, you shouldn't read this.) I stopped tuning in halfway through the first season, so it was pretty enthralling to catch up on all of the emotional carnage that had taken place since then.

For example, Tommy Walker and his wife, Julia, finally gave birth to twins, but lost one of them shortly after birth, the plot equivalent of rounding up a herd of bionic kitties, throwing them in a sack with some rocks, and tossing them into the nearest lake.

And then there's the heart-rending son-in-Iraq plot that's custom-made for the effortlessly tear-jerky Sally Field. Of course she's right about Iraq and about how much better it would be if mothers ruled the world -- as a potential member of the ruling party, I couldn't agree more. But when Sally-as-matriarch-Nora sends a perky "Hope you're OK" video message to her son Justin, then gives us her best exhausted, fearful look, and then freaks out over the front doorbell ringing, because she's worried that a military man is there to tell her that Justin has died? It reminds me of E.T., laying on his hospital bed, looking hopelessly pale. I know that real mothers are worrying about their real sons in Iraq, but that doesn't make this scene any less melodramatic. It's melodramatic to the point of being, well, slightly tacky. What's next? Nora's other son, Kevin, saves a bunch of schoolchildren from a pair of burning skyscrapers, seconds before they collapse?

And as usual, by the first commercial break, all the Walkers are fighting, and they're all pulling out their biggest, heaviest weapons for even the most casual bickering match.

"Do you think you're the only one with marriage troubles?"

"You can't just expect someone to organize his life around you when you can't say 'I love you.'"

"Tell her to call me when Justin dies, then we'll have something to talk about!"

But don't worry too much. Lots of sincere, clearly worded apologies will be flying around by the next commercial break.

"I was thinking about you said ... You were right. You shouldn't be the only one trying."

"I'm really sorry about your dad's present."

"I'm so glad you're home despite the way I've been acting lately. I've been so scared and I've been taking it out on you and I'm sorry. You're a wonderful daughter and friend and I love you."

Then everyone dances, so we know that they're happy and they love each other and that's the most important thing of all. Christ, it's enough to make even the kitten-huggers among us wretch. I mean, what kind of messed-up families spontaneously break into dance, smiling at each other all the while? These people are so enduringly honest and loving and good, it makes my skin crawl.

But then ... the mood changes! Rob Lowe's character, Robert (who's a super-foxy Republican senator -- no, they don't exist in real life), and Calista Flockhart's character, Kitty (who's a Republican version of Ally McBeal), exchange worried looks -- or they would be worried looks, if they both didn't appear to be Botoxed into a state of perpetual apathy. Does Senator Foxy know something that we don't know?

"Brothers & Sisters" is emotional Frogger. Luckily, I loathe these beautiful, wealthy, loving, empathetic humans and so it brings me deep joy to watch them suffer.

Next page: "I really need to kill somebody"