So last night about a gajillion people watched the first episode of the final season of HBO's "Game of Thrones." That number will go up a jillion or two when you add in folks who are streaming the show or will watch it later.
I watched the first three seasons on "Game of Thrones" but then, for no apparent reason, I quit. I've read all the books and think they are amazing, yet I can't finish the TV series or even go back to where I left off. Don't ask me why. I don't have an answer.
Shawn RyanTruth is, I can barely get through a single season of any show anymore. In recent years, I watched all of "Justified" and "Eureka." Back in the early '90s, I watched all 110 episodes of "Northern Exposure." In the'80s, I watched 137 episodes of "St. Elsewhere." That's all in the past, no pun intended.
In the past couple of years, I've started watching several shows only to stop. I stuck with the first eight seasons of "The Walking Dead," but didn't watch a single episode of the most recent one, the ninth. Got bored.
I tried a couple of seasons of "American Horror," but it went weird just for the sake of being weird.
I've started on "Castle Rock," the 10-episode series based on the town that shows up in many Stephen King novels. Watched two episodes so far. Eight more to go. Got them all on DVR. Haven't watched it in more than a month. Same with "Project Blue Book." Watched four episodes, recorded the other six. Its season ended a month ago and I haven't watched any of them.
(You may notice a theme in the types of shows I prefer. I watch horror, science fiction, fantasy and other shows of that type. After more than 30 years in newspapers, I seek entertainment, not real life.)
You can count on one hand the number of series or miniseries I've watched start to finish in the past few years. "Altered Carbon." "Penny Dreadful." "Preacher." "Berlin Babylon." "Stranger Things."
I watched all of the two seasons of the brilliantly grotesque "Ash vs. Evil Dead" on Starz and the creepy "Outcast" on Cinemax, then they canceled both of them, leaving plot lines dangling.
It's not like I'm enrolled in a calculus class or learning Mandarin Chinese. Nothing is taking up all my time or the few remaining brain cells still bouncing around in my skull.
Perhaps, as I get older, my attention span is simply dwindling. Maybe that's it.
Wait what was I saying?
Contact Shawn Ryan at mshawnryan@gmail.com.