In this new age of stream-able and binge-able TV consumption, I’ve been warned that, to be relevant, I need to tune in (to use an anachronism) to any number of “amazing” shows. Doing my best to move into the 21st century, I’ve actually checked out some of them: House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, True Detective, Fargo, Breaking Bad, Black Sails, and others. Some of them took. Breaking Bad was all pleasure. Some of them, not so much. True Detective took too much effort for me to to get invested, even when Matthew McConaughey and Woodie Harrelson were doing the heavy lifting. I only made it through two episodes.
But, of course, this “take it or leave it” attitude is the power of the new culture of TV watching. The networks don’t define what you can watch or when you get to watch it. And, let’s face it, for people raised on NBC (or ABC, or CBS, or FOX), where ne’er a boob is seen nor an f-bomb dropped, Americans are unrepressing their repression with characters who swear like sailors and sleep around…a lot. A whole lot.
The success of two shows has caught my attention in particular. No, Game of Thrones is not one of them. How could a well-written, well-acted, well-produced, larger-than-life fantasy show not work? The shows I have in mind are Shameless and Californication, which have had surprising staying power. I’ve watched several episodes of both, and I find them (disturbingly) alluring as far as binge-watching goes.
At a superficial level, the shows are very different. Shameless is set against the challenge of the economic uncertainty of a working class family in Chicago. Californication is set against the against the challenge of meaningful living in the world of Southern California writers, actors, producers and rock-stars.
It is this difference that makes their similarity so striking–they have the same premise. Flawed people consistently make bad decisions that get in the way of grasping what they desire most. The opportunity for realizing a dream is there, but it always wafts away due to a lapse in judgment. And the flaws that bedevil the characters in both shows are the same–an obsession with getting into the pants of nearly everyone they encounter, drug and alcohol abuse, lack of social filters for the words that exit their mouths, personal pride. The inhabitants of Shameless and Californication have next to no impulse control. They don’t want to harm those that they love, but, seriously, these folks just can’t help themselves.
The spectacle of disaster-episode after episode-is what makes these shows so seductive. It is cathartic to see someone on the screen live out the consequences of character flaws that I share, at least in part, without experiencing them myself. And the vicarious thrill of watching them say things and do things every couple of minutes that are, well, really, really inappropriate, offers a vicarious thrill for those of us operating in polite society.
But the success of Shameless and Californication is also deeply saddening. Nearly all of the characters are seeking happiness. All of them believe that happiness exists in faithful, intimate, relationships. Yet all of them subvert that possibility through their own betrayals, stupidity and self-centeredness.