Shawn RyanMy wife and I just got through the first season of “This Is Us,” the NBC drama that follows the life of the Pearson family, the plot bouncing back and forth from birth to death and everything in between.
It’s well-written and has moments of pathos, humor and surprise. And, like most TV shows (and life itself), its characters sometimes do things that are so impossibly stupid you know it was merely a way for a Hollywood scriptwriter to push the story along.
My wife loves “This Is Us,” and I like it, too, but not nearly as much as she does. It’s not the type of show I would watch if she didn’t. I’m not into family dramas.
Fact is, I watch television for escapism, not for a rehash of real life. I get real life every day; I don’t need more at night. It’s one of the reasons I quit watching “thirtysomething” back in the 1980s. I was thirtysomething back then and didn’t need to see my life splattered all over the TV screen.
For me, it was always dramas such as “St. Elsewhere” (hospital), “Hill Street Blues” (cops), “ER” (hospital), “L.A. Law” (self-explanatory), “Northern Exposure” (goofiness) that caught my attention. I need a little adrenaline rush every now and then, I suppose.