Missed My Chance

After months of anticipation, on Sunday AMC's critically-acclaimed show "Breaking Bad" debuted to record-high ratings for the network. Before you get too excited, I would like to point out that it was only about 3 million viewers. That is about half of what a rerun of "The Big Bang Theory" gets on any given night. Also, this is a country of 300 million people, meaning literally 1% of the population cared enough to tune in. With those numbers in mind feel free to back off, everyone who thinks they are better than me because I don't watch this show. (As you can probably tell, "Breaking Bad" fans have taken up the throne as most insufferable fans of a marginally-watched and therefore disproportionately-talked about show. Everyone claims they love this show, but if that were the case the ratings should be much better.) Anyway, annoying fans of a television show talking down to every non-watcher of that show is usually enough to make me ignore a program on spite alone, but that is not the case this time around. What is keeping me from being part of the 1% watching "Breaking Bad" is actually a much simpler reason - I haven't been watching the show from the beginning and now I feel as though it is too late to start tuning in.

This is a fairly common problem among the cable-channel dramas. Most of these shows are very involved, with a lot of characters and multiple, linear story lines, meaning there are a lot of names and plots to keep track of and it could take all season to resolve one or two issues as dozens more pop up along the way. So, unlike your typical dramas such as a "Law & Order", if you miss a show in the middle, suddenly you are totally lost about what is happening going forward. Even worse, some shows ask you to hang in for a couple of seasons before they resolve their main issue. That means if you want to start watching you have to track down the previous seasons and catch up on everything which has happened up to this point. Considering that feels an awful lot like homework (which is the exact opposite of what TV is supposed to be feel like), you can imagine my reluctance to go back and start from the beginning. Basically, what you have to do is be in on a show early enough to catch up within one or two weeks or wait for the season to end and do all your viewing in one sweep. It's a little like trying to jump into a moving vehicle: you can do it if you move early enough, but if you hesitate even a little bit all you're going to see are the taillights fading into the distance.

Believe me, I appreciate the delicate position this puts the person recommending the show in. Whenever I tell people how much I really enjoy shows like "Justified" or "Sons of Anarchy" they will inevitably ask me if they should start watching them. While my initial reaction is to say "Why, yes, of course you should", I've toned down answering that way because the next question is always "Well, catch me up on what I've missed and I'll start watching this week." Catching up on the last four seasons of a show like "Sons of Anarchy" requires flow charts, a timeline and a power-point presentation on all the characters who drift in and out. Honestly, there is no way to quickly catch-up without missing some key plot line which will invariable be mentioned on the next show. After a while you just want to tell them to go back and rent the DVDs for the first couple of seasons, but that can be a time-consuming request. What if they don't like the show? And even if they do, casually requesting a person to spend several nights of their lives to catch up on a few seasons of a show seems like a large hassle just so the two of you have something to talk about at lunch. At this point I try to only talk about it with people who I already know are watching.

I'll give credit to networks like AMC, because they will try and keep last season's run of episodes On-Demand for as long as possible to give everyone the chance to see what they may have missed. Usually they aren't pulled until that season is about to be on sale, so while you missed your chance to watch for free, at least you can still catch up by the time the next season starts. Also, many of these cable dramas have long pauses in between seasons, so if you really wanted to catch up you have the time. Still, I think most of the time people are quick to give up on a show they haven't seen, resigning themselves to waiting until the entire series is out on DVD so they can watch everything at their own pace. (This happens in real-life as well. Have you ever been running so late to a party that you just say "forget it" and decide you'll stay home and hear all the details tomorrow? This is the same principle, only with a remote control involved.) Admittedly, this tactic won't do you much good in the short term (It would be like if someone just watched the Harry Potter movies this week and wanted to talk about them. The nerds have moved on.), but at least when people are sitting around talking about the show 10 years from now you can seamlessly work yourself into the conversation without anyone suspecting you hadn't heard a thing about "The Wire" until it had been off the air for 5 years.