Patty and I haven’t watched any regular television for years. We play discs or videotapes, or watch movies and shows streaming on the computer. In none of these activities do we have any contact with commercials.
Well! Yesterday we wanted to watch an old Rockford Files episode that had some bearing on a book I’m going to review. We couldn’t find it on YouTube or amazon, but eventually we found it on a new streaming service. And so we settled down to watch.
[Special effect: screech of brakes]
Whoa! Stop! What the hell is that?
It’s… commercials! They’re showing us commercials. They kept the show’s original commercial breaks and filled them with brand-new commercials. Mostly for gadgets and assorted medicines.
Aagh! This is supposed to be a freakin’ drama, you nincompoops! What drama can survive these stupid interruptions? Okay, it’s not Medea or Hamlet–but it could be; and you’d still have these lilliputian hijinks interrupting the grim flow of the story.
After going so long without them, we found commercials truly shocking to see. Appalling! What–you mean millions of people watch this stuff every night? No wonder we can’t think straight. At some level of the subconscious mind… are there commercials playing?
It’s too horrible to contemplate.