I don't have a T.V. show that I watch regularly. This is due to the fact that my schedule is different each night, I'm too lazy to put a cassette tape in the VCR and suffer through the humiliation and frustration of trying to find out how to record and, finally, because there is not much on TV anyway.
I recently was surprised that I had a night free and made a trip to Blockbuster to find what many find there - nothing. Out of desperation and trying to find a way to salvage the 5 minute mission to Blockbuster I ran across DVDs for various television shows. I saw House, MD, a show I had seen a few times and liked a lot. I rented the DVD that contained about 5 episodes.
Dr. House is a physician who is well known as one of the best diagnostic doctors. Don't know what's wrong with someone? Send them to Dr. House but beware. Dr. House is equally known for his incredible and unforgiving sarcasm - enormously comical if you are watching it on TV, destructive if you are on the receiving end.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes which I watched back to back. Because it is commercial-free one episode lasts 42 minutes instead of 60. I found myself during the day wanting to watch the remaining three episodes ASAP. I finished them the following day. There was one episode that involved a case of euthanasia. Dr. House's sarcasm made it impossible to know how he really felt about it. In the end the patient was euthanized but no one knew for sure who did it, however all evidence pointed to someone on House's staff of three doctors. The episode ended with House approaching one of his doctors who was in the chapel crying the next morning. He put his hand on her shoulder and said "I'm proud of you". Did the show I was enjoying just endorse euthanasia? Well, I told myself, it was ambiguous and it was just an episode.
I soon rented two more videos which contained the last 10 episodes of the season. Vacation was quickly approaching, I had got sucked into the series, and had the time to watch them.
Over the course of two weeks I watched the whole series, about 15 episodes and I learned a valuable lesson from this rare experience. Too much of anything too soon was not good for me. The sarcasm, once funny, was annoying and even depressing. I discovered that although I was only a viewer I felt like I was also on the receiving end of the sarcasm. There was another episode where House told a patient exactly how to kill himself while not damaging his organs so that he could donate his heart to his son. What was once funny and entertaining had irritated me and I found myself feeling a little mad that a series I was enjoying had left me warn out and worn down by its constant degrading sarcasm and a culture of death that often peaked its ugly head under the mask of humor and compassion.
I know its a show and not reality but its effect on me was undeniably real and even physical. I could feel it. Something fictional that I had watched had a nonfictional effect that was not pleasant. Too much House too soon was a bad thing! Too much of anything is a bad thing. Balance is so important, much like a diet.
However, having seen one full season in its entirety without much interruption I wonder if the problem wasn't just too much too soon but the show itself. Was the show OK in small doses or was it a bad show -one that leads us away from God- that in small doses simply doesn't show its negative side effects? I don't know. On a moral level we would never knowingly do something wrong and try to justify by saying that it would be OK so long as we only did it a little or did something good later to "balance it out". It doesn't work that way.
When we watch one show once a week for 15 weeks or so we don't know where the show is going. That would be boring. We wonder what's going to happen next and that wonder tempts us to tune in the next week. We also don't get the 'big picture' by watching week to week; rather, it unfolds with the season. Also, anything we watch on T.V is often balanced with other entertainment - sports, books, etc...- and so its effects aren't usually felt too strongly. I experienced a full season of House, M.D. almost interrupted; I saw the big picture, and while it was attractive in small pieces its was ugle when I sttod back and looked at it in its entirety. Like going to an art museum I think the only way you can really see a painting is by standing back a little to allow the eyes to capture whole picute. If you stand to close you see paint not a picture. House was full of great paint but the picture was disformed.
Where does this show fit in? I don't know.
Will I watch House, M.D. again? I don't know. For now, I've overdosed. I doubt I'll ever watch a full season of any T.V. series so quickly again.
If the old saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" were true my mouth would be full of them (green ones). Perhaps the annual doctor visit is not a bad idea after all.
"My house shall be called a house of prayer" - Isaiah 56:7
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you"
- 1 Cor 6:19
I recently was surprised that I had a night free and made a trip to Blockbuster to find what many find there - nothing. Out of desperation and trying to find a way to salvage the 5 minute mission to Blockbuster I ran across DVDs for various television shows. I saw House, MD, a show I had seen a few times and liked a lot. I rented the DVD that contained about 5 episodes.
Dr. House is a physician who is well known as one of the best diagnostic doctors. Don't know what's wrong with someone? Send them to Dr. House but beware. Dr. House is equally known for his incredible and unforgiving sarcasm - enormously comical if you are watching it on TV, destructive if you are on the receiving end.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes which I watched back to back. Because it is commercial-free one episode lasts 42 minutes instead of 60. I found myself during the day wanting to watch the remaining three episodes ASAP. I finished them the following day. There was one episode that involved a case of euthanasia. Dr. House's sarcasm made it impossible to know how he really felt about it. In the end the patient was euthanized but no one knew for sure who did it, however all evidence pointed to someone on House's staff of three doctors. The episode ended with House approaching one of his doctors who was in the chapel crying the next morning. He put his hand on her shoulder and said "I'm proud of you". Did the show I was enjoying just endorse euthanasia? Well, I told myself, it was ambiguous and it was just an episode.
I soon rented two more videos which contained the last 10 episodes of the season. Vacation was quickly approaching, I had got sucked into the series, and had the time to watch them.
Over the course of two weeks I watched the whole series, about 15 episodes and I learned a valuable lesson from this rare experience. Too much of anything too soon was not good for me. The sarcasm, once funny, was annoying and even depressing. I discovered that although I was only a viewer I felt like I was also on the receiving end of the sarcasm. There was another episode where House told a patient exactly how to kill himself while not damaging his organs so that he could donate his heart to his son. What was once funny and entertaining had irritated me and I found myself feeling a little mad that a series I was enjoying had left me warn out and worn down by its constant degrading sarcasm and a culture of death that often peaked its ugly head under the mask of humor and compassion.
I know its a show and not reality but its effect on me was undeniably real and even physical. I could feel it. Something fictional that I had watched had a nonfictional effect that was not pleasant. Too much House too soon was a bad thing! Too much of anything is a bad thing. Balance is so important, much like a diet.
However, having seen one full season in its entirety without much interruption I wonder if the problem wasn't just too much too soon but the show itself. Was the show OK in small doses or was it a bad show -one that leads us away from God- that in small doses simply doesn't show its negative side effects? I don't know. On a moral level we would never knowingly do something wrong and try to justify by saying that it would be OK so long as we only did it a little or did something good later to "balance it out". It doesn't work that way.
When we watch one show once a week for 15 weeks or so we don't know where the show is going. That would be boring. We wonder what's going to happen next and that wonder tempts us to tune in the next week. We also don't get the 'big picture' by watching week to week; rather, it unfolds with the season. Also, anything we watch on T.V is often balanced with other entertainment - sports, books, etc...- and so its effects aren't usually felt too strongly. I experienced a full season of House, M.D. almost interrupted; I saw the big picture, and while it was attractive in small pieces its was ugle when I sttod back and looked at it in its entirety. Like going to an art museum I think the only way you can really see a painting is by standing back a little to allow the eyes to capture whole picute. If you stand to close you see paint not a picture. House was full of great paint but the picture was disformed.
Where does this show fit in? I don't know.
Will I watch House, M.D. again? I don't know. For now, I've overdosed. I doubt I'll ever watch a full season of any T.V. series so quickly again.
If the old saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" were true my mouth would be full of them (green ones). Perhaps the annual doctor visit is not a bad idea after all.
"My house shall be called a house of prayer" - Isaiah 56:7
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you"
- 1 Cor 6:19
