What Ends a TV Show?

There are a number of factors which lead to the decline in quality of a TV show, and ultimately to its cancellation. A few long-running series have managed to escape them, at least for now, such as Law & Order. However, even The Simpsons, which has become an America cultural institution, has started to go downhill in recent years, increasingly relying on poorly written jokes about the government rather than its characters' anctics.

Most of the time, a show approaches its end painfully slowly, especially if it has a large following. Similar to The Simpsons' shift from humor based on the show's plot and characters to the world outside Springfield, other shows' declines are marked by a decline in storylines. As characters are paired off, suddenly become friends, have children, or, in the worst cases, are placed in deadly situations or outright killed, the tension that drives the show starts to fade.

Of course, there are exceptions. In Desperate Housewives, for example, I think the writers are required by contract to include at least two murders per season, one extramarital affair, an assortment of other crimes such as embezzlement and arson, and somehow keep all the main characters in the neighborhood. In Law & Order, at least one person is killed per show, and every so often the assistant DAs and main detective's partner get changed.

Then there are shows like Grey's. While Grey's has so much emotional tension that it's surprising no one's been murdered by a fellow colleague, the last two seasons have stretched the limits. By the fourth season, though, almost all of the interns had passed their exams. However, rather than continue following the tension between these new residents, the older residents, and attendings, a set of new interns was introduced. Rather than having interns who were interesting, the interns were presented as one-sided fools. 

Come fifth season, the drama gets ridiculous — the interns practice stitches and putting in IVs on each other because they only see the residents for five minutes a day. One intern has her appendix removed by the others, and almost dies, and is later dismissed from the hospital. None of the residents are punished. And the cherry on top? One resident, Izzy, sees her fiance's ghost, and later finds out it's a hallucination caused by… (schizophrenia? a strong prescription medication? sleep deprivation?) a rare stage 4 brain cancer that may kill her in three months. If that's not a writing disaster in progress, I don't know what is. One of the main characters is leaving at the end of the season because the actor didn't renew his contract. Losing a second main character seems like a really, really bad idea.

Only on Nickelodeon… Steers With Udders

Today was a very slow day at the clinic, so I ended up watching a children's show called "Back at the Barnyard." Aimed at the elementary school kids still jittery from their morning cereal demographic, the show is a computer-animated comedy about what farm animals do when the farmers aren't watching. 

What they do in secret, apparently, is walk on their hind legs, tell badly-written jokes, and get stuck in very strange plotlines. In one episode, the arrival of one clam leads to a swarm of clams taking refuge in the barn. Apparently, clams are able to survive and reproduce outside the water at rates comparable to e. coli bacteria.

Among the main characters of the show are a pig, assorted sheep, a sheepdog, a skunk, a Jersey heifer, and a large Holstein whose name is Otis. What is unusual about Otis to anyone who knows the basic definition of a mammal or has at least learned a little about cows?

Otis has an udder, which are of course nonexistent on male cows. I was immediately reminded of an exchange my mother and I heard at a farm. I don't remember it exactly, but basically a little girl asked her mother if a cow nearby (which had a very swollen udder) was a boy cow or a girl cow. The mother said that both boy cows and girl cows make milk.

It was one of those moments where I'm sure it was very tempting for the farm staff to laugh out loud. My mother and I wondered where this woman got the notion that boy cows make milk. Are people really that undereducated about biology? I feel like I knew that mammals are defined as having fur/hair and lactating (if they are female) when I was in early elementary school. Perhaps part of it was the steady dose of Zoobook magazines I had as a kid… but by the time you're out of school, you should know that male mammals don't lactate. 

If you don't know that male mammals don't lactate after school, something is wrong.

Silly Things I Learned from…

Grey's Anatomy:

* Doctors never use on-call rooms to sleep.

* Surgeons are so special that they can take care of all their patients' needs and never have to ask their patients' nurses about how they're doing.

* Anesthesiologists, nurses, physical therapists, social workers, orderlies, food service employees, custodians, and chaplains all wear invisibility cloaks.

* HIPPA doesn't exist; surgeons can discuss patients' medical histories in the cafeteria, elevators, hallways, each other's houses, etc.

* Female surgeons are required by law to wear eye makeup at all times.

* Surgeons who disappear for several hours without explanation are never reprimanded.

* A mentally stable, responsible surgeon who happens to be pregnant is suspect of being "crazy" because of her hormones.

* Nurses only need to be consulted when you're looking for a brain dead patient who could be an organ donor for your patient. 

Desperate Housewives:

* Property values never go down in neighborhoods where there have been several murders, a few stalkers, a hostage crisis, and fugitives.

* Freelance illustrators and plumbers can easily afford to live in upper-middle-class suburbs.

* A man who has been incarcerated for embezzlement can easily find a job again in business.

* Selling your Dolce & Gabana dresses and fancy sports car are signs of financial distress.

* You can hide that you're getting chemo until you get sick at your child's school play.

* Busy moms never wear sweatpants at home, and they never go without makeup.

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (includes spoilers):

* French women can perfectly coordinate their outfits with the interior decor in their homes, offices, and stores.

* Getting married at 16 to the 20-year-old guy you love is ridiculous, because you don't know about love and besides, your mother doesn't like him.

* Getting married at 16 to a 30-year-old guy you hardly know is absolutely fine if your mother approves of him and he's rich.

* When you run into financial troubles, don't tighten your budget. Sell your prized pearls.

* Don't bother telling your boyfriend that you're marrying another man before he comes home.

Disney movies:

* You don't have to even talk to someone to know that you love them and would be willing to give up your family, home, and friends for the rest of your life to be with them.

* Kissing someone will bring them out of a coma if you really love them.

* People whose only friends are animals can have normal social interactions with other people.

* Being emotionally abused by family members won't leave you with any emotional scars.

* Sleeping in strangers' houses is totally safe.

* A princess in a traditional Muslim kingdom is allowed to wear a belly shirt.

Revisiting Childhood Ghosts (Or Hand Dryers)

Over lunch today, my dad remarked that if my mom raised me on her own, I wouldn't have watched any Disney movies (except 101 Dalmatians). My mom is strongly feminist in a very 1970s Ms. sort of way, so she objects to Disney's portrayal of women and Indians (in Peter Pan; she didn't watch Pocahontas with me when it came out). I understand her points; you'd have to either be seriously racist or blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones to think Peter Pan portrays Indians fairly. But I think children pick up on much more on what's scary in Disney movies (and anything else they watch) more than sexism and racism. 

For example, I hated Pinnochio (and haven't watched it since elementary school) because of the scene when the boys turn into donkeys. Listening to a melody repeated in a particular Disney short (Mickey and the Beanstalk) made me feel annoyed, and then uneasy. I still can't stand the opening of the "Mysterious Theatre" skits that used to be on Sesame Street. As a young child, I was most afraid of certain noises, such as the noise of hand dryers and hair dryers, so I think what bothered me about Mysterious Theatre was the thunder crashing and creepy music. 

I used to have trouble understanding facial expressions and emotions as a young child (I was diagnosed on the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum), which I think made a lot of movie villains less scary. Even noticing anger was beyond my understanding, which would have certainly reduced the scariness of pretty much every villain on film. I wish I could remember the point at which emotions started to "click" for me; I can't even pinpoint when I no longer had to have special education teachers in elementary school, but it's become so clear to me in recent years what a difference they made, and I think that's something to be thankful for. 

The Medical Fairy Tale that is Grey's

We all know that surgeons have to be trained for several years after medical school, and that even "minor" procedures require careful planning and the coordination of several non-surgeons, from a patient's nurses and primary physician to the guys from transport who transfer patients and relatives involved in someone's care.

However, watching surgery on a medical show makes transplant procedures and open-heart surgery appear simple, even to the person who knows better. Incision, incision, witty banter, a few deft hand movements, more witty banter, and it close up! The involvement of scrub nurses and anesthesiologists, is of often neglected, as well as post-op recovery. A surgery that often lasts over 10 hours is condensed into a 5 minute scene, and none of the surgeons show a trace of physical fatigue or a drop of sweat, let alone faded eyeshadow. 

I hate to say that watching Grey's has affected my view of medicine, because that statement almost makes it sound like I've begun to expect all male doctors to look like George or Derek. The latter is certainly not true. If it were there would probably be a lot more people applying to volunteer in hospitals (not that volunteers have much contact with doctors, if any).

While there are many amazing, almost surreal moments in medicine, especially in the hospital setting, the world of Seattle Grace is a worse fairy tale (in terms of its potential to mush your brain) than those adapted by Disney. Even if the doctors were semi-ordinary looking, the narrow focus on surgeons to the exclusion of other doctors, nurses (especially nurses), orderlies, social workers and chaplains produces the illusion that the work of the non-surgical staff is not significant enough to warrant mention outside of romantic trysts or searches for future organ donors (brain-dead patients on life support who only show up when a cuter patient needs a new heart or liver). I'm not knocking surgeons, but I think they get enough recognition and quasi-deification in the non-fictional world. 

Having spent almost all of my time volunteering around transport staff, social workers, and nurses, I realize that part of my opinion about non-surgical staff is shaped by these experiences. However, I think most people don't see, or at least better appreciate, the roles of these individuals until they or someone they are close to is hospitalized. And though people shouldn't rely on TV for a realistic picture of life, maybe medical shows could be used to provide a more inclusive picture of medicine*.

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* = I've only seen one season of it, but the drama series St. Elsewhere has the most balanced presentation of medical staff I've seen on a medical show. While the main characters are surgeons and medical residents, there are several specialties represented (emergency medicine, cardiovascular, OB/GYN, general medicine…), and nurses and orderlies get a respectable share of face time and dialogue.