The room where it happened (I watched TV)
So much of our feelings about television come from our experience watching it, rather than the text itself. I remember The West Wing fondly as a show in near-constant reruns on Bravo while I folded laundry with my mother. The one time I caught a new episode on NBC I was mildly put off for reasons I couldn't articulate.
Streaming television sometimes encourages a flattening of this experience. Expensive scripted cable and streaming series are meant to feel more like a movie or a book, where the world around us dissolves and we're left only with the thing we're watching, not the circumstances around our viewing. This is a generalization, but a lot of what we watch - certainly a majority of what's critically acclaimed - has moved from a model where if you miss an episode it's no big deal to a model where you can't go to the bathroom without pausing an episode. Which is fine! TV is a lot of things to a lot of people.
I'm someone who's spent a lot of time primarily with these kinds of shows. I can be snobby about the TV I watch, and while it's not my most attractive trait I can't change that I like what I like.
But this past year my TV habits have changed dramatically. I'm a stay-at-home parent, for one thing, and for another thing a lot of my neural pathways have been replaced by a flashing silent alarm about the spread of the deadly coronavirus. I recently rewatched Breaking Bad and found it almost impossible to enjoy - the simmering threat of Walt's murderous violence took over the show, for me, and all I could think about was how anxious every character was at all times to prevent him from hurting them or their loved ones. The Sopranos, which I rewatched just before Breaking Bad, held much the same appeal to me this year.
So it should have come as no surprise, I suppose, that I've recently fallen in love with Antiques Roadshow, specifically the UK (original) edition. If you've never seen it - as I hadn't - it's more or less exactly what you imagined:
Because it's the UK, a lot of the antiques are really opportunities to discuss World War II; also, people are often like "me dad bought this for fifty pee in africa while surveying where the borders of different countries would go" and then the experts say "well it's worth a hundred thousand pounds, good for you and your famiily." While writing this piece, I saw one of the show's own appraisers see a statue of a horse and say, "This could not be more timely, with the release of the film War Horse, a powerful testimony to the relationship between a soldier and his horse." I've never watched Antiques Roadshow US so I don't know if these elements appear often there (in my imagination Antiques Roadshow US is 75% Confederacy memorabilia 25% signed photographs of Casey Kasem).
The format of the show is soothing, of course, but I actually think that it's the way I watch it that has a heavier impact. I watch it by tuning in to the Antiques Roadshow channel on Pluto TV.
In case you don't know, because so many people I evangelize to don't, Pluto TV is a streaming platform owned by ViacomCBS that presents programming very much like how I understand cable - it's full of discrete niche channels that one can flip to, and each is ad-supported. These niches are even more niche than cable, though. Many include a constant stream of random episodes of only one show (e.g., a Carson's Tonight Show channel, a Love Boat channel, a Tosh.0 channel); there's even an MST3K channel AND a RiffTrax channel. My most-watched channels are the Antiques Roadshow UK channel and the fabulous Dark Shadows channel, which has been my first exposure to this classic soap (access to classic soaps is a topic for another newsletter, and is in my mind the subject of a Master's thesis I may never pursue).
After over a decade of streaming and piracy, I never thought I'd be watching ad-supported TV again, but here I am. I don't think the issue is that something in me especially needed to watch Antiques Roadshow specifically. What I'm enjoying is being freed from the terrible burden of having to decide what to watch. Pluto TV successfully recreates the feeling of stumbling upon a block of reruns of a show you love, where it doesn't matter episode you watch. If I were watching Antiques Roadshow on another platform I'd spend forever deciding if I'd rather watch the episode filmed in Surry or the one filmed in Naughton-on-Brigsby. I just don't have the mental bandwidth for those tough calls right now. If you can relate, I really think there's a Pluto TV channel for you. Sorry for this ad for a Viacom property but I really do love it.
And if you're reading this and you work for Viacom or Pluto TV in any capacity, here's my big pitch for you: Bring back SOAPNet as a Pluto TV channel. I'm positive I'm not the only person who would love a channel with a full day of classic soap programming. Free idea.
I'm also curious, to anyone interested: what Pluto TV channel would you love to see? Are there shows you think would syndicate particularly well in this format? There's already an all-Leverage channel, just so you know.
Lastly, I think I'd like to include a TV theme song with each of these messages, so today's will be Antiques Roadshow's, which is great:
and here's a "Drum & Bass remix" if you are into that:
(if you ARE into that I once made a playlist of a few of my favorite TV theme song remixes, mashups, samples, and covers, and you can listen here.
No updates on J. Fred Muggs yet. Maybe I'll call back this week. Hope all is well with you and your performing apes.