TV, I Love You, but You're Bringing Me Down

 

The Golden Age of Television is bumming me out. And I don’t just mean because the tenor of much of TV’s best programming is about as cheerful as a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

What’s really got me down is that there are no less than two dozen shows currently airing (or, more accurately, streaming) that I know I would love. Problem is, I haven’t seen a single episode of any of them, and chances are good that I never will. I’ve sailed right past FOMO and crashed into COMO – the Certainty of Missing Out.

The simple fact is that there’s just too much great TV being produced at the moment. What started with HBO’s prestige series like The Sopranos and The Wire has spread to streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, along with some seriously off-the-beaten-path cable channels, making it increasingly tough to keep up. I mean, Rectify – a show that currently boasts a 95+ rating on Metacritic – has been on the freaking Sundance Channel for the past four years. Sundance Channel!

For years, when someone has recommended a new show to me, I’ve nodded and smiled politely and assured them that I’d check it out. But no more; I can’t keep living a lie. See, starting a new series (especially one with multiple prior seasons) is a huge commitment, representing dozens of hours and a massive emotional investment. The harsh truth is that, as long as great TV continues to be produced at this rate, I’m just not going to be able to keep up. Of course, that’s not going to stop me from bemoaning my fate and wishing that I somehow had the time to get to all the good stuff.

But in lieu of actually, you know, watching all these great shows, I’ll have to settle for hearing about their brilliance from others and crossing my fingers that the afterlife will have some good on-demand viewing options. In no particular order, here’s a rough list of the shows I’d really like to watch but am probably doomed to only hear about from other, happier people:

• Atlanta
• Black-ish
• Westworld
• Luke Cage
• Silicon Valley
• The Americans
• Mr. Robot
• Rectify
• Transparent
• Halt and Catch Fire
• Better Call Saul
• Fargo
• Master of None

I know what you’re thinking: Ooh, I love [insert probably awesome show here]. You should totally watch it!

Thanks a lot, jerks.

Listen, I know I should totally watch them. That’s my point. I’m surrounding by a swirling tornado of TV awesomeness, and here I am stuck with these lousy 24-hour days. I spend literally hours a day working at a job where I’m not even allowed to watch TV, plus my dumb body requires like eight more hours of sleep every single night. The universe, including all the heartless monsters crafting thoughtful, engaging televised dramas and comedies, is obviously aligned against me.

But seriously, for somebody who’s come to regard top-shelf TV as about the most purely enjoyable form of entertainment going, the current crop of excellent shows is as much a curse as a blessing. On the one hand, there are so many great options that anyone looking for a new show to get hopelessly engrossed in, but on the other, there’s so much to choose from that no matter how enjoyable one series is, the suspicion that an even better series is lurking on some other channel or service is hard to shake.

This is about as clear an example of the Paradox of Choice that I’ve ever come across. In a vacuum, I’d say I want as many options as possible, but when I’m actually presented with a huge number of great shows to choose from in my limited viewing time, I feel anxious and incapable of making the “right” choice. I end up worrying more about the shows I’m not watching than the one I am.

I’m sure many of you would (perhaps rightfully) tell me to stop overthinking it and just pick a show already. Everybody has time constraints, and it only feels like the whole world is watching every show on TV, when obviously they’re not. That’s reasonable and everything, but, you know, shut up. Let me wallow in my COMO and take pity upon me because, even as I type this, SHOWTIME or somebody is probably producing a gripping yet intelligent drama that will be winning Emmys for the next half-decade but that I’ll never see a minute of.

Not like it matters. You people will let me know how great it is, anyway.

Thanks again, jerks.