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What I Have To See/Hear/Be

Alessandro Pennini
Jun 11, 2016
2 min read

We’ve never had so much good television before us, partly thanks to networks like HBO, AMC and now Netflix. No doubt many of you reading this will go home to watch something, either legally or illegally, but before you think to yourself which shows you have lined up for tonight, let me pose the question: which of those shows are worth it?

I get recommended a lot of television and I’ve tried to watch a lot of it. No doubt you might have been recommended a television show and a recommendation is usually given with your friend, neighbour, acquaintance saying the long uttered words “Oh you have to watch it!”

Case in point, I watched American Horror Story in the hopes of horror and a story. While I got neither, I did get the added benefit of an American perspective on what they though the former and latter were; it was a profoundly disappointing affair, and when I proclaimed my disappointment to all involved in singing the praises, I was greeted with:

“Oh the first season isn’t that great, the second season is where it gets really good!’

First off, that is a complete lie. When there’s so much television competing for your attention, the first season had damn well better be good or at the very least, promising. Your show’s success depends on a first season at least. And secondly, you mean to tell me I just watched eleven to twelve hours of a “not that great” first season, and you’re trying to sell me on a second? Hogwash, get away from me.

You are under no obligation, now more than ever, to watch something you don’t like and you are by no means required to watch something only to fit in. If I don’t like a show or a movie, I stop watching.

It’s the most concrete thing you can do to a product designed to occupy your time; by not giving it yours. In an age of glorious television, you should demand good television or at the very least, entertaining television. Entertaining doesn’t necessarily mean stupid or loud or violent but it should be engaging.

However, you can’t realistically watch everything, unless you completely dedicated your life to it. And with TV series clocking in a 45 minutes an episode, or the prime-time hour length, you’re going to be spending a lot of time merging with a couch or a computer chair to become a human blob.

You don’t owe anyone an entire series of a television show and you should demand higher standards from television, now more than ever.