The more I watch TV shows and their supposed realism the more separated from living I think they are. I know they are just stories and it is escapism on a grand scale but as a story writer I can assure you they are not that inventive or that interesting, going over story-lines and themes as old as Roman,Chinese and Greek myths. The hero, the heroine the enemy.
They say there are a set number of story-lines which we re-interpret for each generation using the old motifs with different attributes. So for example no one two hundred years ago would have ever written about a telephone in a story but the idea of communication across distances is not new, it just goes from the field of magic to the field of fact.
I don’t have an argument with these shows, they are what they are, but I do feel it’s like reading a trashy novel when you know there are wonderful literary experiences to be had, that viewers are sold short and that actually TV could be an inventive medium that engages the viewer in an extension of their experience not an affirmation of their day-dreams.
When they invented TV they said it could educate in a way not know before in the human race. I think that baton has been handed to the Internet.