Mindless Entertainment Consumption

Lately I've been wondering what it is I look for in a television show. I've loyally followed so many over the years--from Power Rangers to Alias to The OC to Grey's Anatomy to Glee--and I figured I should take a step back and think a little about why I commit myself to hours of mindless entertainment consumption. I came up with three things:


A good TV show, first of all, has wit. Wit gives TV its character, and what would be the point of watching a show that's got no character? Of course the best manifestation of wit is in the script, in the conversation among the characters. Sitcoms like FRIENDS and How I Met Your Mother are by definition witty, but even more serious shows like House (which is a medical drama, for goodness' sakes) or NCIS (which is a crime drama series) or Heroes manage/d to do it. It's all about good writers who can create character chemistry with the clack of a keyboard.

Great TV shows also have themes, and by this I mean a feature that distinguishes a program from the hundreds of others already in existence. And the newer the show, the more interesting this feature has to be, just because everything else has already been done. For instance, Gossip Girl spiced up the traditional teenage drama (a-la Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill) by moving the setting from small-town America to Upper East Side Manhattan, and throwing in a mystery online gossip correspondent for good measure. How I Met took the FRIENDS genre and made its plot revolve around the concept of meeting the love of one's life. Glee basically brought Broadway to the small screen. Supernatural put together mythology and monsters and dysfunctional families and crime investigation all in one go. Big Bang Theory elevated geekdom.

But while witty conversation and a good solid theme already automatically make great television for me (and by "great" I mean I'd spend hours marathon-ing the shit out of it) there does remain a third and equally important factor: hotness. 

Let's face it: would we all really be that interested in GG if it weren't for Chace Crawford? Would Desperate Housewives, despite all its scandalous story lines, be as successful without Eva Longoria? And Prison Break without Wentworth Miller, The OC without Mischa Barton, FRIENDS without Jennifer Aniston, Smallville without Tom Welling/Kristin Kreuk, Grey's Anatomy without Patrick Dempsey and that McSteamy guy, 24 without Elisha Cuthbert, Supernatural without Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles, Big Bang Theory without Kaley Cuoco, True Blood with a different cast... I could go on forever. 

Point is, it's all about being interesting, unique, and beautiful on TV shows, whether it's comedy, drama, crime, and everything above, below, and in between. It's why we love TV--because it imitates and exaggerates and condenses real life, all in the name of mindless entertainment consumption. 

*BOW*