In high school, I tried to watch the show Lost, after hearing it was “the most adventurous show on television.”
I watched the first ten minutes under the covers of my bed and thought, “Wait a minute, all the people on the plane die except for the hot people?”
The fact that they also had one enormously overweight character, Hurley, to balance out the ratio of attractiveness reminded me of The Delia’s catalogue after it was criticized for promoting anorexia. “Ok, keep the skinny models but just balance that out with one very, very overweight one. Now it’s like real life!” But not really.
I felt like Lost seemed really sucky and retired it.
In college, I started dating a guy who was a big Lost fan.
“Well maybe you didn’t like Lost in high school because you were too young to understand how complex and philosophical it was.”
I took this as a challenge. I knew for a fact I was smarter in high school than I was in that moment. In high school I read Nietzsche. In college I drank a lot. I trusted 17-year-old me more than anyone. It happened to be Christmas break, and it just so happened that most of Lost was on Netflix, so I watched the whole goddam thing. To the end.
And I still hated it.
I have since realized that there is a ratio at work when I watch TV which I will call The Pretense of Intelligence ratio. Basically, the more critics and friends lead me to expect a show to be “groundbreaking, witty, philosophical and insightful,” the more sensitive I am to its more stupid traits.
It goes something like this:
Rate of stupid moments in show x Pretense of intelligence = Amplification of annoyingness.
So let’s say that Community is an all-around a funny show. Nonetheless, it has a few moments I deem stupid – like when the characters outwardly explain that Jeff’s lifelong battle is fighting the walls he puts up against people. (I can infer that, thank you.)
Here’s the equation:
3 stupid moments/ 1 episode (3) x 2 pretense of intelligence = 6x Amplification of annoyingness
Now let’s look at a Disney show, Wizards of Waverly Place.
I feel like there is maybe 1 stupid moment per episode, but the pretense of it being intelligent is 0. This means I can absorb a million dumb moments and still like it. No wonder I love Tyra Banks as a Top Model host.
Now, I can finally explain why I hate Lost. Its pretense of intelligence is a 10 out of 10. Adamant fans say it’s the most groundbreaking show in years – it has “changed TV.” The show itself adds to this pretense by naming all of their characters after philosophers and famous thinkers.
So when I find out their middle eastern character is an Iraqi torturer played by an Indian actor, I’m like … :/
This ratio explains almost all of my TV-watching behavior. If you want me to like your next favorite cerebral drama, tell me it’s really dumb.
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