Television

I have deep and abiding hatred for February. Yesterday's warmth notwithstanding, it is the time of year when my ability to muddle through the darkness and the cold just snaps, and I fall into a big old funk and mope around, with no interest in anything except feeling depressed, and no amount of telling myself that it will pass does anything to alleviate the pain I inflict on myself and everyone around me.

Yep, February sucks.

This February is no exception. I have knitting malaise, work contempt, and creative black hole. The only thing that is holding my interest, that is pulling me through the day, is television.

Actually, let's face it, with the lack of anything else holding my interest, or with everything else actively propelling my interest away from them, television is not, as it usually is, "an interest" or even "entertainment." It is all of a sudden an obsession.

This is not an uncommon thing for me. There was that year when I saw Pirates of the Caribbean eleven times. In the theater. There was Enchanted. (There still kinda is Enchanted). I get low, I find something I enjoy, and I cling to it for dear life, and it pulls me through. This year things are a little more general--it's just tv. If it's a show with an arc and an overarching plot, I am obsessed with it.

So--Lost. That certainly fits the bill. And thank God it was on last night. Kind of a boring bridge-type episode, but at least Sayid's hair is curly again, and Jin's alive like we all knew he would be, and Charlotte finally died so maybe we can move on now. Does anybody else think Kate's love for Aaron borders on the creepy?

And Friday--be still my palpitating heart--Dollhouse finally premiers, and whatever the middling reviews (and believe me, I've read them all), whatever the head-scratching would-this-really-happen? premise, whatever the Fox-fear, I don't care. I'm going to watch it. And then I'm going to watch it again. It's Joss Whedon, for God's sake.

Then there's Castle, starting on March 9. Which, you know, looks kinda dumb, but it's got Nathan Fillion, so I'm all in. He's always funny and great, therefore it will be funny and great. Right?

And there are other shows on, but I don't care about those particularly--the obsession branches out in very specific directions--so there's all that other time in between, not to mention during the day, and so what else can I do but read episode recaps of shows I no longer watch. What's happening on Grey's Anatomy? What happened at the end of The Gilmore Girls? How exactly did Television Without Pity describe the last episode of Angel? (I've seen that one, and several times, but I wanted someone else's opinion of it. Bad call. That person hated Wesley and liked Gunn. It was one of those times when you're all: "Everything you're saying, the opposite." And perhaps now I should go read the recaps of Firefly....)

So you see the descent into madness going on here.

I know that the sunshine will return, and February is almost halfway over, and that all I have to do is sit tight, clutch that remote for dear life, and try not to despair during those moments when the television is turned off.

I'd best do some netflixing.