Things are starting to open up and we are all getting to escape our pandemic prisons…just a little. I was raring to go and came running out of my bunker armed with my mask, rubber gloves and hand sanitizer. I’m ready to do battle. That vicious Covid-19 is still out there, ready to pounce and take down as many of us as it can. I’m also not too proud to retreat when I have to.
After three months in seclusion, a breath of fresh air is needed and a break from binging is vital for survival. When I say binging I mean snacks, drinks and the worst of all, streaming television. That could be deadly. We have all been victims of this deadly addiction. Lying on our couches, remote in hand, scrolling through all the streaming channels on our smart TVs, then watching 48 episodes of an old show in a matter of two days. Is sleep really necessary? Did Tom Selleck really fit in those tiny shorts back then?
Imagine if this pandemic occurred in the 1960’s when we all had three channels to choose from and on top of that, nobody had remotes. I think the walk back and forth from my chair to the television would have inadvertently gotten me into great shape. Ok, maybe there were some benefits in the good old days.
On top of everything else, my wife and I have been displaced from our usual residence. I can hear what you’re thinking. No, I didn’t miss a rent payment. We are having a Property Brothers like remodel going on at our place. Unlike the Property Brothers, the contractors are not nearly as good looking and it’s taking 13 weeks instead of one hour. I guess you can’t believe everything you see on television.
We are staying at a condo nearby and have no cable service. How will I survive? Streaming television on a smart TV. What is that? That is when you have a television hooked up to the internet and you can access such streaming channels as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney Plus, CBS All Access and Apple TV. These are not broadcast networks. For those young folks, a broadcast network would come through the air (really the air, not cables) be captured by what were called rabbit ears on your TV resulting in a picture that was very fuzzy full of snow. To fix it, you did a dance with your antenna that looked like it was choreographed by Martha Graham.
Back to the future (yes, you can find that to stream). My wife and I are navigating our way through all kinds of TV shows to watch. Some good, many bad and quite a few very old. If you want to watch all The Andy Griffith Show episodes, you can. Tell me you won’t try to whistle along with the theme song. If you don’t like the new versions of Hawaii 5.0 and Magnum P.I., you can go back and check out the originals. Once you see how aged they look you may think twice. If you want to see a real fake President, like the one on The West Wing, who makes the present fake President look even worse, go ahead. Just understand that Jeb Bartlett can’t be re-elected.
There are also many shows created just for streaming services. How about that upbeat diddy on Hulu called The Handmaid’s Tale. “Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship,” IMDb’s words not mine. What a great way to lift your spirits during a deadly pandemic. What next, Mad Max…oh, yes, you can find that online too.
I love British murder mysteries and there are a ton of them to stream. I don’t know if I will ever visit these little hamlets off the beaten path in England for fear of my life. The people seem so nice but, according to these shows, they’re killing each other at an alarming rate. They’re very courteous in the way they kill people. No beating or maiming. Just poisoning, suffocating or something that looks like an accident. The victims actually look comfortable in death. It features an experienced Detective Chief Inspector who has a young, dim witted assistant. The young guy does all the legwork and heavy lifting while the inspector never wrinkle his suit and at the end pulls the solution out of his…it’s British, must be proper…bum.
My wife is always trying something new. She’s daring. We are now watching a show called High Seas. It is a Spanish drama set on a cruise ship on it’s way to Brazil right after World War II. Are you guessing Nazi involvement? I won’t give away anymore. It is dubbed in “British English” but at the same time, it has subtitles that are drastically different from what we are hearing. It will keep you on your toes.
For all those Breaking Bad and Mad Men fanatics, you can stream the complete series. All you need is a service to deliver you food, a faithful dog who can fetch you a beer from the fridge and have an inserted catheter so you won’t have to be bothered by those nasty bathroom visits. When you finally emerge from you basement, have your spouse apply some makeup to get rid of that Walking Dead look you’ll have…and yes, you can stream the Walking Dead for your next binge
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