Guy Lloyd: It takes a lot to inspire commitment to a new TV series
Believe the hype
TV is a funny thing, eh? I’m not an avid watcher of the box but I do tend to dip in now and again, mainly for good comedy shows (dwindling all the time) and football (my team providing the comedy, ironically). It’s also a useful tool if you just want to zone out for a while and not move. It pacifies us, doesn’t it? Numbing the brain to a point where the body can’t be arsed to do anything for the rest of the night.
Since I’ve actually been on it, I’ve watched it more (critiquing, honestly) and I’ve enjoyed friends and colleagues making their own way in to television and watching all the local footage of places I know and love. But I’m careful not to get too involved in TV. I like to mix it up on some nights with a good book, a film, a bath or going out for a pint, to watch a band, etc. There’s never been that urgency to get home and watch something, unless it’s football, and with the advent of the iplayer and catch up, there’s no need to rush back for anything in particular. In fact, if I’m late for a kick-off, then I’ll ask my son to pause it and I’ll watch it when I get back. This has the added bonus of being able to fast forward Adrian Chiles during the half-term interval.
We can’t possibly contemplate life without it
However with Netflix, and more specifically, Breaking Bad, all that has changed. I saw the hype all over facebook and twitter about a year ago and I was just hoping it would fade away.
I didn’t feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon. But it just didn’t go away. And then I’d actually talk to people (occasionally, when facebook is down) and they’d all be raving about this bloody TV show I ‘had to see’. I know I’m late to the party here, but better to be late than to rock up and find that everyone has gone home, and the DJ is packing stuff in to the back of their car.
It wasn’t just the peer pressure that was a problem for me, it was the actual commitment to start watching something like this and see it through. I couldn’t just give up half way through, unless it was terrible, and I had a strong feeling it wouldn’t be.
The only other time I’d watched something similar and seen it through to the bitter end was the amazing HBO series Six Feet Under, and that turned out to be my favourite drama series of all time.
So my wife and I watched it. And we loved it. And we’ve been watching it most nights now for the last four months. We are now coming to the end, and I am already feeling the loss and can’t possibly contemplate life without it. It’s so good, and we are so addicted.
It’s left me with one disturbing question, though; how can one have so much love for two drug dealing murderers?
Follow me: @guy_lloyd
