Bow to the Master

I’m not a huge fan of television. Every once in a while a show will strike my fancy and I’ll go through a period of mad infatuation, never missing a one and recording (or as I still say, ‘taping’) episodes so I don’t miss anything. One of my dalliances was The Real Housewives of New York and Dancing with the Stars revived me from a winter slump a year or two into Ireland. And finally, who doesn’t find some red, white, and blue comfort from King of Queens every once in a while?
When we moved into the new house we decided to cut corners, immerse ourselves, and opt out of the UK and Ireland television god, Sky. Alas, we have two Sky boxes, one with and one without DVR. The thing we’re missing is a dish. Rather than part with more money for hundreds of channels with nothing worth watching, we chose a French satellite provider with a package limited to North American Sports Network because my beloved can’t live without his college football. No movies, no cooking shows, no Place in the Sun--Home or Away.
All of this is fine for the most part. But sometimes you want a mindless, easy escape. Especially now when I’m surrounded by French all the time, some laughs from the big guy Doug and his sassy skinny wife Carrie would really come in handy. Instead, we’ve taken to watching House on Tuesday nights because we can switch the language to English for an episode after the French news. House isn’t so bad.
But the other night we were both so tired and hard up for English that we sat through the worst show ever….’Lie to Me’. The plot was silly. Terrorist agents infiltrated the CIA and framed an innocent kid from the ghetto while the English guy figured out that someone was lying about it all. It had everything—xenophobia, post-traumatic stress syndrome, terrorist threats from within and an unspoken attraction between the face reader and his partner. Cringe.
Yet we watched the entire show. Commenting the whole time on how awful it was while privately enjoying listening to something without squinting in concentration, picking out only every 20th word, and trying to piece together the story using visual and contextual cues.
Tonight we’ve hit an all time low. I just watched a Timbaland video about vampires and werewolves solely because it was in English. The sad thing is that even if and when I can understand French enough to watch a show like Friends en francais, the dubbing will freak me out so much it won’t be worthwhile. For now I’ll stick to the news and get my English fix live and in person from my Canadian and fellow Texan friends.
Oh, but how I would love to know what happened to make Jill and Bethenny ex-BFFs.