I've just come out of a musical theatre bootcamp where the song, Seasons of Love, from the hit musical, RENT, brought poignant performances and became our theme song. (More about that later).
But that's not what this entry is about. This entry is about being wooed, romanced, engaged, entranced, and then dropped like so much chopped liver after a satisfying Season of Love that leaves you wanting more. Left hanging to deal with my own reality. Over and over again. And who is this perpetrator you ask? Well, what else but the beguiling allure of new millenia TV for jaded denizens can have that kind of effect??
In place of the tall, dark, handsome, brawny but brainy, testosterone-packed Giuseppes, Judes and Fabios of the world - my heart is constantly broken by the Ugly Bettys, the Sopranos, the Heroes and the Greys Anatomys of this world. Why? Because fiction, action-packed, emotionally heightened and jam-squeezed into 40 minutes or so of solid, watchable TV is about as bad as a shot in the arm. Not only is it addictive, you're thinking about scoring your next hit throughout the working day, and settle into periods of anti-social behaviour, where it's just you and your TV series, and at the end of a season - you're left with severe withdrawal symptoms, only to move on to another hit series, where the same process sucks you in and makes a sucker out of you, only to end AGAIN!
Because you're left wanting more when one love ends, you're out there searching for the same kind of loving that you've so become accustomed to, the kind of loving that you've been so spoiled with, and so you flit from lover to lover, channel to channel, series to series, in search for the same all-consuming love. And you find it, and you go through periods of adjustment, getting accustomed to each new lover's ticks and eccentricities, and you grow to love it, but lose it again and again.
And then, after an unreasonable amount of time - the prodigal lover(s) comes back to haunt you and seduce you and you give in and you're drawn in again, for another season, only to be left to deal with unresolved issues and whopping cliffhangers that take the life out of you. Season 2 of WEEDS ends with one such cliffhanger. It killed me. It was absolutely cruel. And the same goes for Season 1 of UGLY BETTY. And what about the Season 3 cliffhanger of GREY'S ANATOMY?
Yet, you somehow do adjust to the fact that your lovers operate in this pattern of intense bursts and periodic passion - but that's not half of it. NO........ Just when you think you can handle it, they DIE on you. Oh yes, for TV is cruel, its talons made of unrelenting titanium fortified with evil cooties.
Oh yes! Remember that no-good hustler, FRIENDS? Or the Biggest Love of Them All, SEX & THE CITY? And what about THE SOPRANOS? How much more can a girl take???
I'm now bracing myself for what is to come with my current hero, HEROES (yes, i resisted it for the longest time but one rainy night, when Astro failed again, I plucked up the courage to slip the first disc into my DVD player - DAMN YOU ASTRO!!!). For I know, the end is near and the season is ill with cruel intentions. And as for THE SOPRANOS, the biggest heartbreaker of them all, the one I fell hard and fast for, and will never recover from -- I'm saving my stash of 6 final episodes to be savoured one by one, prolonging the end, allowing myself one episode per week. And I know it's not going to last... But one more, just one more, just one more hit, and then I'll consider going into rehab...
