I could lie and say that I’ve given up on TV in favor of scholarly pursuit. Or that I’ve elected to use the egregious amount of time I would have spent vegetating on the couch to backpack through Europe to Eat, Pray, Love my way into a better understanding of myself.
The truth, unfortunately, is far less grand.
I love spending hours swathed in a fluffy duvet, whispering the little white lie “just one more ” before “accidentally” letting the next episode play automatically. Reading is my passion, but visual media is a more versatile and accessible experience for most people, meaning I can actually talk about it with the people in my life. Sure, getting people to watch a show you think they will enjoy is like giving a cat a bath, but try getting anyone to read a book.
No, my giving up on the idiot box has been less of my own choice (at least it feels that way), and more of a result of shows deciding they don’t want me as an audience member.
Seven years ago, we were spoiled for choice when it came to TV shows. Streaming sites were churning out banger after banger and the only thing we lacked for was time to watch everything.
Fast forward to 2025 and mediocre TV has become such a mainstay that when a serviceable show is able to worm through the cracks, it’s like a happy accident. One that will inevitably be rectified in the second season.
Characters that were intelligent in season one will turn inexplicably dumb for convenience sake. Plot threads that had you on the edge of your seat will be dropped or handled so lazily you will wonder why they even bothered introducing them in the first place. And current events that have no place within the narrative will be clumsily crowbarred in because the writers have an obvious axe to grind about Issue of the Week.
By the end of the season (if you get that far), you’re left with such a sour taste in your mouth it makes you question whether or not the show you once loved was ever good in the first place.
So, what happened?
The entertainment industry has always been plagued with intolerable narcissists that think they are the beginning and end of creativity. In days prior, however, they at least had a modicum of talent to back it up with. I’m not sure if this newfound lack of skill is due to want of life experience, or if they are just Nepo babies who think they are Gaia’s gift to fiction because they got a bunch of updoots from Tumblr on their Supernatural fanfic fifteen years ago.
Regardless, the compulsion to ask existential questions about humanity, nature or philosophy has gone the way of the dinosaur. Modern creatives (and I use that word loosely) seem to write purely out of spite for society (and their dads) rather than any genuine aspiration to make something meaningful. They treat scripts like a therapy exercise rather than a product that will be consumed by others. I’m not saying writers can’t write to “figure themselves out.” The issue is a lot of the people making modern slop aren’t nearly interesting enough as people to make a deep dive into the inner workings of their psyches worthwhile. It doesn’t help that most of them appear to have the exact same perspective on nearly every issue.
Even when the writers aren’t ideologues with a pathological hatred of interesting people, shows have become so watered down any person with two brain cells to rub together will find them impossible to enjoy.
And it’s not going to get better.
Turns out we needn’t have worried about the inevitable march towards Artificial Intelligence. We’re ruining the medium of story-telling all by ourselves by creating dreck for slop zombies that can’t be bothered putting their phones down long enough to comprehend a 45 minute episode of White Lotus. It’s not like they could just, you know, rewind a couple of seconds if they missed something.
I’m not bitter, though.
No, I’ve just decided that I’ve had enough.
No more taking a chance on something new. No more uncharted territory. I don’t care if something is Really good so far or Has a unique premise. I have been let down way too many times to even entertain the prospect of giving something else a go. House of the Dragon was my last disappointment.
I will continue to rewatch old shows from my teens and twenties and leave the rest to you, Gentle Reader.
Good luck to you.
The Crooked Pen 