Less and less...

Watching television shows and movies has become harder and harder for me.  I cannot tolerate ones that make me anxious or drag me down into darkness.  I am weary of criminal shows where the bad guy is a masterful psychopath constantly outsmarting everyone else, including the ones who have either hacked the authorities or have moles working for them.

I am also weary of shows where the storyline has sex peppered throughout.  For example, I tried watching the new show "Station 19," a spin-off from "Grey's Anatomy."  Where I like "Chicago Fire," even with its heavy dose of interpersonal relationships and light treatment of calls out in the community, "Station 19" had but a fraction of firehouse calls and a suffocating dose of interpersonal relationships, including sex.

Gosh, "Grey's Anatomy" has you believing that half the activity in a hospital is sex.  Talking about sex.  Before sex.  Having sex.  After sex.  You do get some good medicine in there, but the promiscuity and cheating that goes on is appalling.  I just do not think that hospital culture is truly that lewd and salacious.

Why is it that there are not more shows like "Blue Bloods," a show rife with interpersonal relationships but where sex just isn't a factor.  The rest of life is.

I want a story, not a distraction.  And I want a realistic story, unless I'm watching science fiction.  I want a beginning, middle, and end.  I want thoughtfulness.  I want workplace integrity.  I want a realistic look at the lives of those involved outside of the story.  And I want bad guys who are not exceptionally brilliant psychopaths.

Is that too much?

I have enjoyed "Marvel's Agents of S.h.i.e.l.d," but the ongoing torture of the team is just a bit much. I glimpsed a bit of a review of this past episode and have, thus, not watched it.  Poor Fitz ... I hear he gets broken.  I just do not want to watch that.

I do like shows that explore how broken people function or how broken people heal.  But I need to be in the right headspace to watch the breaking.  And I'm not there.  Nor do I want to go there anymore.  I want to finish the story of S.h.i.e.l.d., but I do not think that I can endure it.

"Fringe" ... now there was a show where team members went through the ringer at times and when the world seemed lost.  But the show's writing team never left you in true despair.  I miss "Fringe."

And "Lethal Weapon."  The brilliance of that show is that a viewer could almost just stick with the slick and skip the interpersonal development.  But a viewer can also savor a continual journey from an abusive past and adult loss to creating safety and building family.  As far as storylines goes, Fox offers a hauntingly beautiful pathos in this action-flick-turned-television-series.  Just brilliant ... at least it is to me.

More and more, I find myself retreating to older shows or British, Irish, Australian, Scottish, or Canadian ones.  Whenever I feel a disturbing angst beginning to well within me, I jump online to read a recap or movie synopsis to see if I am being led down a path from which I might not return.  If so, I stop watching.  That is a marvel and a sadness to me.  I stop watching.

I stop because I have become so very weak.
Weak and weary.
In body.  In mind.  In spirit.

So as lonely as I am and as much need have I for distraction from bodily wretchedness, I often choose silence over streaming.

You know, what is needed is a streaming service that is for the weak and weary.  That would be great.  Heck, I'd subscribe.  And I bet a lot of folk in the support groups online would welcome the same.