Admit it, we've all loved a TV character. Whether you desperately wanted to kill a Dalek with a Sonic Screwdriver, fancied a pint of Duff with Homer Simpson, or wanted to make yourself some F.R.I.E.N.D.S, TV offered us everything we could ever want. Well... sort of. It offered us the chance to watch other people have everything we could ever want whilst we eat an entire bag of Doritos and leave an everlasting (and ever-growing) imprint on the sofa.
Hyperreality
We wait like addicts for our next half hour dosage to allow us to slip out of reality and into a happier place, where the bad things only ever happen to the people on our flatscreens whose lives only ever exist when we are watching.
Last year I started watching a show on Netflix and after five minutes I had decided it was awful. One year later and I have watched two whole seasons and a two hour 'Halloween Special' (there was nothing special about it, other than being especially awful). Why did I keep watching? Because I wanted to know what happened to that blonde girl whose name I can't remember and her shifty looking boyfriend. Theoretically I shouldn't care at all because if I stop watching then aren't they as good as dead anyway?
Idols for the idle
It's not exactly breaking news that we watch too much television but maybe it's not the watching the we should be worrying about, maybe it's the way we watch. Maybe the problem isn't how much we watch but how we react to what we do watch.
I'm not too proud to say that when I was a toddler I wanted to grow up to be a dinosaur (a Stegosaurus, to be exact) because I think that's a damn sight better than growing up wanting to be a terminally ill chemistry teacher who cooks meth! We could let our lives pass us by as we sit there and watch the people we wish we were.
It's easy to forget that every witty comment is scripted and every super model girlfriend and tanned and toned boyfriend is being paid to stand there and look pretty. Why? Because wouldn't it just be so much more wonderful to believe that this was a reality somewhere in our world?
Californication
Without doubt one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen.
A charming, witty, good looking writer moves to California without his unrealistically good looking girlfriend. Every attractive girl he meets can't resist him, everything he writes requires minimal effort but makes big money and every mistake he makes is forgotten by the next episode. It's so superficial that you can't imagine anyone being sucked into it, let alone yourself. And yet, a few witty comments, flashy cars and awesome parties later, you find yourself daydreaming about being Hank Moody; driving along the beach in a black porsche with a fat wad of cash in your pocket and a gorgeous girl in the passenger seat.
In reality, if I ever found myself in that situation, I hope someone would give me the smack to the face that I'd deserve!