Cable Confessions

Cable Confessions

Those of you who have been reading my column for a while and who still remember important things like the words to the theme song from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, may recall my family’s battle with cable. The battle was entirely on our side--Cable TV had no clue of the war that we were waging. For years we were happily one of the few cable hold-outs in the world. We figured that we already wasted too much time watching TV so why encourage the habit with better programming? And we were doing just fine until FIOS came along.

Once Verizon installed fiber optic cables on our street they offered us their version of Pandora’s box, called the FIOS package. Quite simply we would be paying less for their bundled, phone, internet and cable system than we were currently paying for just our phone and internet. It was an offer we couldn’t refuse.

Our new cable capabilities didn’t affect Steve because except for the occasional sports program he rarely watched TV but I was a sitting duck. My self control is non-existent when faced with potato chips, fresh bread and a beloved sitcom. Add to that the fact that I’m a person who has to finish anything they’ve started be it a book or a movie no matter how bad, and you have a recipe for an instant couch potato. Many is the time Steve has come into a room, looked at what I was watching and asked, “Why in the world are you watching that??” and my only answer is, “I have to know how it ends.”

I held out for a while. But then one day I came home from work exhausted and cautiously picked up the remote. I hesitated for a moment knowing what I was letting myself in for, then pushed the red button. What I really hate about cable TV is that no matter what time of day or night it is, if you keep pushing those damn buttons you will inevitably find something that will suck you in like a vacuum cleaner. Something will appeal to your potato brain and you will sit there like a deer in the headlights unable to look away.

And here is where the confession part comes in. Readers, if you want to retain any respect for me I suggest that you stop reading now. Because what I am about to reveal will shock you to the core. Of all the possible crap that I could have become addicted to, and despite my bonafide card-carrying membership in the Masterpiece Theater club, (or Misery Theater as Steve calls it) it’s the reality show genre that has hooked me. Yes, I am a reality show addict and I’m not proud of it. So sue me.

The programs that I can’t seem to stop watching belong to the self-improvement/ fashion category. The first one, America’s Next Top Model, I can blame on my daughter, Lisa, my enabler and co-watcher. A few years ago, after she had just graduated from Wesleyan, she found out via her alma mater grapevine that one of the women that had lived in her dorm was a finalist on the program. Neither one of us had ever heard of the show before but we thought it would be fun to see someone we actually knew on TV. So we found out when it was on and made a date to watch it together.

Originally created by super model, Tyra Banks, the show can now be seen in over a hundred and fifty countries by crazy people with nothing better to do, like me. Tyra Banks and her fashionista co-horts choose about 20 women from thousands of applicants, throw them into a gorgeous house for a couple of months and eliminate them one by one through modeling competitions. The last one standing becomes, you guessed it, America’s next top model. The upside of this show is Tyra Banks and her assistants who have a quirky sense of humor, and the gorgeous fashions. And if she is to be believed, Tyra is interested in fostering strong women who can break out of the typical cliché model mode. The downside is the incessant squabbling of these impossibly beautiful women who seem to have little more in their heads than the goal of becoming camera mannequins. So after all these weeks why am I still watching this drivel? Mine is not to reason why—I blame exhaustion and bad taste.

The other show that has me hooked is an import from Great Britain, How to Look Good Naked. In this show, the host chooses women with poor self body images (that would be most of us!) and spends six weeks convincing them that they’re gorgeous and all they need to prove it to themselves is an appropriate wardrobe. I love the premise. The show pictures women of every shape and size, teaches them what to wear to make the most of what they’ve got, and sends them out in the cruel, cruel world feeling like the supermodels that inhabit Tyra’s world. I desperately want to go shopping with the host.

So now you know my shameful secret--Cinderella reality shows. But before you laugh at my foibles, what are you watching when you think no one is looking? Somehow I don’t think it’s Death of a Salesman.