Eureka! I am pleased to announce that I have discovered the high-tech, low-cal equivalent of eating the entire box of chocolates! This guilty pleasure is a direct result of something new I have learned: how to work the most important buttons on my ever-more-complicated TV remote control. Ever since Will, the 10-year-old, showed me how to work my DVR and Direct TV, the tapestry of my entertainment life has become much more intricate. And now that you can watch what you want when you want –– mostly commercial-free –– it’s all good!
I confess I had become somewhat of a TV snob. Reading was more fun and probably worked the brain more rigorously than watching images roll by. But have you seen the offerings lately? Technology has turned TV into visual bonbons. At the same time, the story lines, often ripped from real-world headlines, are intriguing.
So how is watching TV like devouring candy? I have actually watched all the recorded episodes of certain shows back-to-back in one sitting. Yum. Here are some of my favorites and why I like them.
“The Good Wife:” The Smooth Dark-Chocolate Melt. I understand Juliana Margulies starred in ER during the George Clooney era that I missed entirely. But boy, do I love her in this show, which arose from the Eliot Spitzer scandal. Margulies plays the wife of the no-good, cheating, high-profile county attorney (played by Chris Noth, best known as “Mr. Big” in “Sex and the City”) who is driven out of office and behind bars by a sex scandal. Nonetheless, she stands by her man. To support their two teenagers, she is forced to go back to work and takes on a job as an associate –– the low woman on the totem pole at a prominent law firm.
Margulies is a masterful actor who can pack a range of emotion into just a look or a lift of the eyebrow. The firm’s investigator is a tiny, curvy, fiercely intelligent dynamo played by Archie Panjabi, a British actress of Indian origin. Not only is she fun to watch, I am delighted any time I see more ethnic minorities in mainstream roles.
“Three Rivers:” The Chocolate-Covered Almond
Speaking of ethnic minorities in mainstream roles, another fascinating actor I have recently discovered is Daniel Henney, who plays Doctor David Lee in Three Rivers, a medical drama about a team of transplant surgeons based at a fictional hospital in Pittsburgh. His chiseled good looks, his elegant bearing –– described by one of his patients as “full of substance and grace” –– made me wonder about his ethnic origins. Surprise, he’s half-Korean, born to a mother who was adopted as a baby, and an Anglo-American father. Having grown up in an era when there were practically no Asians on television, I cheer when I see an Asian, especially a Korean, on prime time. Other prominent Koreans on prime time, of course, are Daniel Dae Kim and Yun-Jin Kim of Lost.
“Medium:” The Caramel Nut Chew. Patricia Arquette plays the working mother of three girls. She has a sweet, supportive husband, who is very patient and understanding about the disturbing dreams that wake her up gasping in the middle of the night. Arquette is a psychic who uses her abilities to help solve crimes.
I love the interplay between her and her husband when it comes to the challenges of raising three daughters, all with varying degrees of their own psychic ability. I also love the dynamics between her and her girls, especially the eldest, Ariel, a challenging high school student who is both her parents’ little girl and a fiercely independent young woman (a lot like two teenage girls I happen to know).
All the CSI shows, especially “CSI: New York:” The Toffee Crunch. I like these shows for the same reason I like crime thrillers by the likes of James Patterson, Lisa Scottoline, Elizabeth George, and Mary Higgins Clark. There’s a juicy mystery at the core, a whodunit that leads the characters along a trail of clues while sometimes weaving in personal storylines, and at the end of virtually every episode, there is a nice, satisfying conclusion where the bad guy is captured and justice is done.
What is so appealing about this is that it runs so contrary to real world crime and punishment, where the bad guys often get away with their misdeeds and the wheels of justice grind ever so slowly. Case in point: the trial of the 9/11 hijackers. While everyone is questioning the wisdom of holding the proceedings in New York, I want to know why it took eight long years to get to this point in the first place.
“Glee:” The Hazelnut Cream. This is Will’s favorite show. Think of exuberant, heart-pumping dancing and singing, the kind you see in movies like “High School Musical” and “Fame.” Then think of every single high school stereotype you ever knew –– the jock, the nerd, the diva, the cheerleader, the stoner, the misfit –– and turn them into likable, good-looking kids who can hit the notes and rock it. Ever the optimist, I am hoping this show might actually influence Will to take some singing and dance lessons and turn into a musical theater enthusiast.
Now, if I were really motivated, I would turn TV-watching, this low-cal activity (I do like to munch in front of the tube) into a calorie-burning activity by jumping onto the elliptical while watching my favorite shows. On second thought. NAH! Why let guilt ruin a guilty pleasure?
