So despite what you all may think, my (unhealthy?) love of television extends back much further than Desperate Housewives. And as I was lying in bed last night thinking about how I should really post an update about how I've been dealing with quitting DH cold turkey, my mind instead started to drift through the myriad of obsessions I've had over the years. And then because it was 3am and I was half-asleep, I thought that it would be a splendid idea to actually write about it, and somehow twelve hours later, even now that I have been awake and functioning like a rational adult for hours, it still seems like a good idea. So here we are.
A brief history...
Obsession One: Sesame Street
I have great parents. My wonderful mother stayed home with me as a child and gave me attention and read books to me and did lots of other wonderful, stimulating activities. And one of those things was to let me watch Sesame Street. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe if I had never seen Sesame Street, I would have grown up to be one of those people who watches whatever happens to be on when I have time to pick up the remote. I'll honestly never know.
How obsessed could a child be with Sesame Street, I'm sure you're asking yourself. For me it was a habit ingrained into my everyday routine. As in, every day I would wake up in the morning, stumble into my parents' bedroom, turn on the TV and watch Sesame Street. And then I'd watch the same episode again at noon. And then again when it came on in the afternoon. I was like a robot programmed to know when Cookie Monster would be appearing on my television; I had to watch.
And then, of course, came the infamous Christmas Eve on Sesame Street incident, which my mother still tells with some strange form of affection every year. When I was three (three!), my parents sat down and watched Christmas Eve on Sesame Street with me. Of course, as soon as it ended, I demanded to see it again (yes, even at three, I was a compulsive re-watcher). As it was the late 80s, though, we didn't even have a VCR yet, and my poor mother was forced to tell me that I couldn't watch again. This resulted in me sobbing uncontrollably at my parents' inability to let me see Big Bird any time I wanted (and probably unconsciously motivated them to let me have full access to the VCR and blank tapes later in life). I was crushed. My parents should have realized then that TV was going to play a big role in my life.
Obsession Two: The Care Bears
Three years after the disaster with Sesame Street, my new passion was watching The Care Bears. I watched it every day before I went off to kindergarten. I even had several stuffed animal Care Bears, and I forced my dad to play Care Bears with me on a regular basis. The entire game revolved around me being in "Care-a-Lot" (aka the top bunk of mine and my brother's bunk beds) while my dad had to live in dreary NoHeart's Castle (the bottom bunk) and try to snatch my Care Bears as I dangled them about like helpless bait. The hero, Swiftheart Rabbit (my favorite Care Bear, who I still have to this day), was never able to be caught due to her swift prowess, and thus it was always up to her to rescue the others. She never failed.
Clearly I had already begun incorporating TV into my real life.
Anyway, the show. One morning, I sat down to breakfast, ready to enjoy another half an hour of adventures when, to my horror, The Care Bears didn't come on. Anxiously, I called for my mother, desperate for her to explain this unacceptable change in my daily routine. "Fix it!" I demanded. "Make them put it on!"
Unfortunately, that day I learned my first lesson in the uncontrollable nature of television programming schedules. It turned out that The Care Bears was cancelled (or at least taken off the air--it was probably well into reruns at that point). My feeble, six-year-old mind couldn't handle this information, and I was reduced to tears. Again.
For the second time in my life, TV had garnered a disproportionate, emotional reaction from me.
Obsession Three: Tiny Toon Adventures
My Tiny Toons obsession began when I was about ten or eleven, although I had been watching the show regularly for years. I don't know what changed, but suddenly I was waking up early on Saturday just to see the reruns on Nick. I watched How I Spent My Summer Vacation so many times that I could recite it line-by-line. And I did. Sometimes when my brother would camp out on my bedroom floor (we had our own rooms by then), I would lie there reciting the movie to him until he fell asleep. When we went to the movie rental store, I would pick out old episodes of Tiny Toons instead of something new, despite the fact that it was constantly on TV. I was obsessed.
I don't have any particular memory of how this obsession died out. Entering my tween years, it must have naturally petered out. It was nothing as dramatic or life-altering as the Care Bears tragedy, and I think the truth is that I probably just outgrew the show.
Especially considering that my next obsession was The X-FIles.
Obsession Four: The X-Files
I discovered The X-Files when I was thirteen. My parents were away for the weekend, my cousin was babysitting, and a rerun came on late that Friday night. I watched, enraptured. I couldn't get enough. I had to have more.
I began watching reruns whenever I had the chance. After school, before bed, on weekends. I would tape them on days I had things going on and couldn't be home to watch. I flipped through the TV Guide, figuring out which episodes were on when, if I had seen the episode or not, if it would be one I'd like. I started to keep track of every episode in a notebook, rating whether or not I liked it and why, and even assigning it a grade. At one point, I could list every episode title in order, a feat my brother admired as much as he thought I was insane. It was beyond any other obsession I had had previously.
I was in eighth grade when this started. Middle school was nothing you could pay me to experience again, so like any miserable little girl, I used The X-Files as a coping method. I would sit in Spanish class, trying to figure out how many hours it was until the new episode on Sunday night. I would reimagine scenes in my head, using it as a way to kill time whenever I was bored in school. Describing it this way sounds somewhat pathetic, but I think obsessing over this show was my first foray into real analytical thinking. I was dissecting and interpreting The X-Files long before To Kill a Mockingbird came along. Fortunately, I can say that things got much better once I was in high school, but this new trick was already ingrained in me: TV can still be entertaining even when you're not actually watching it.
The X-Files was also the first show that introduced my to fanfiction. I had a blessed half hour home alone every day now that I was in middle school. I'd rush to our computer, wait fifteen minutes for the dial-up to connect, and then spend my last fifteen minutes perusing the wide world of stories I had discovered on the internet. I was the first time I realized I wasn't alone. Other people loved this show too. Other people tried to make the experience last longer than one hour a week.
I was hooked.
The X-Files obsession lasted until my junior year of high school. I stuck with the show through season eight, and then quit after the season nine premiere. By then the show had shifted focus from the main characters (David Duchovny wasn't even on the show anymore), and I found my interest waning as well. I did tune in for the last episode, of course. I still remember getting home that night (I'd had a banquet at school), popping in my tape into the VCR and lying on the living room floor to join Mulder and Scully on one last adventure. It was surprisingly satisfying.
Since then, my obsession has subsided. Occasionally, I still read X-Files fic (although I have never written one). I own all nine seasons on DVD (a Christmas present one year). I went to see the new movie when it came out a couple of summers ago. And I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling whenever I watch an episode--nostalgia. It was my first grown-up TV obsession.
Obsession Five: Charmed
I discovered Charmed while in the hospital recovering from surgery after my senior year of high school. There were reruns on TNT about five times a day, and since there was nothing else to do but lie in a bed all day, I watched. I can honestly say, it was love at first sight. The show resonated with me the same way The X-Files did; I was hooked.
Things started off in the same way: me collecting and noting random pieces of information (on my computer now); still dissecting and analyzing the show far beyond what a normal viewer would; discovering fan sites that I checked on a daily basis for updates. Charmed was different than The X-Files in some ways, though. For one thing, my sister got into it too, so I finally had someone's ear to talk off. For another, I really made my first foray into the world of fanfiction.
I had dabbled in a few fanfics before, but they'd been mostly ways to kill the time or fill some hole I'd noted in a book or movie. I initially approached Charmed fanfic as a reader, but quickly discovered that the stories out there were not what I wanted to read. It felt like I didn't have a choice: if the internet wasn't going to provide what I wanted, then I'd have to do it myself. In my spare time, I began dabbling in writing fic for the Charmed universe. My first year college roommate wrote fanfic as well, and suddenly a habit I had been keeping secret for so long didn't seem quite so horrifying. I enjoyed it. It challenged me in a lot of ways, and it was a lot of fun.
Eventually, I joined a sorority. Our meetings were on Sunday nights, and I was back to popping in a tape and rushing home to watch after we were done. I stuck with Charmed all the way to the bitter end. It was my first experience with a show breaking up my favorite couple; my first experience with long, drawn out separations; my first experience rationalizing characters and their motivations (when they seeminingly had none). In retrospect, it was good prep for Desperate Housewives.
My love of Charmed lasted beyond the end of the show. In fact, it didn't dim until Desperate Housewives came into my life in a blaze of glory.
Obsession Six: Desperate Housewives
So here we are: the present. Like my other great TV obsessions, this one began when I inadvertantly caught a rerun and was instantly hooked. Unlike previous occasions, though, this time I had the power of DVDs: I went out and rented the first four seasons and watched them in a matter of two weeks. By the time the fifth season started back up (this was during the spring hiatus), I was completely caught up and had probably watched every episode two or three times.
Again, I was obsessed.
And now, almost three years later, I'm slowly weening myself off of the show. In some ways, it feels like The Care Bears all over again (circumstances beyond my control). I'm still writing fanfic because I enjoy it even if I no longer enjoy the show. And yes, secretly I'm still hoping that Tom and Lynette will resolve their problems, and I can see this show out in its last season.
But the truth is that I know there will probably be a new show on the horizon...There always is.
Interesting Fact: All three of my favorite shows (The X-Files, Charmed and Desperate Housewives) air(ed) their new episodes on Sunday (at least by the time I started watching). Thus, Sunday night has been probably my favorite night of the week since about 1997.
Coming up soon..."How I Quit Desperate Housewives (In Ten Easy Steps)" Well, there might not be ten, but it just sounds so nice...
