female of the species

Hi.

I’m going to make some sweeping statements about women.

hollywood glam

TV is truly entertaining sometimes. Watching a series that engages you both in mind and jaw dropping agog-ness is very addictive. I’m talking the CSIs, the Houses and the 24s. Those shows where each episode comes and goes, leaving you with a severe desperation for one more episode.

Another thing that often tickles my fancy with these programs is the attempted degrees of realism that they have. Watching the program and having no experience of being a crime scene investigator / diagnostic doctor / counter terrorist agent you can often be led to believe that the way things happen in these shows is somewhat reflective of people that actually work these careers. Unless… you think for a moment. The television tries its best to hide these facts but lets face them full on here. These shows aren’t real.

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That statement isn’t meant to sound stupid by the way. I’m not talking real like watching police camera action car chase real, or day 6 in the big brother house and brian is eating crisps real. I’m talking for the sake of their ficticious plot, the events and surroundings are decorated, enacted and completely based on the real, in order to make the show plausible. They are trying to be real to a certain degree of reality.

Many times I have watched 24, and wondered how a woman with experience of being an au pair ends up three years later working in a counter terrorist office and even, working FIELD assignments. Or for that matter, how does she manage to walk into the CTU office and that be a normal thing? We all visit people at their workplace, but wait a minute. She waltzes into a government building with a random, currently kidnapped child (season 2 by the way) and the security guard’s main concern is whether or not he has clearance? Not to mention that two hours prior, the building was ATTACKED.

Let’s position this in a real world setting. Mr. Jaques Builder, a government agent, has a daughter named Keira Builder. She currently works for some rich homicidal maniac as his child’s babysitter. She runs, kidnapping the child and heads for father’s employer. Which has just exploded. She arrives at the security gate, the security guard looks at her (in this instance he don’t recognise her, because clearly he and Mr. Builder don’t attend the same work functions during the holidays) and says in no uncertain terms that now is not a good time to be attempting to visit family at work. Go away.

When you think about it, Bauer’s lifestyle is completely unrealistic yet based on realism. It’s a conundrum. The show’s writers must be trapped between letting Jack take down terrorists with his teeth and forgetting to let him go on a toilet or eating break once during an entire 24 hour period. Unless he crams all his eating and peeing in the 4 and a half minute breaks (great aside: when the first number comes up, try to guess what the clock will read when the show returns. One of the best moments of recent times was screaming a number at the screen, getting it right and then basking in my armchair glory). Really. Who eats and pees in random 4 minute intervals. Especially when usually during these moments he is either i) engaged in combat ii) being interrogated iii) interrogating iv) AT HIS DESK WORKING. The mind boggles.

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House is much the same. Yes we all enjoy the witty word play and the brash arrogance that comes with being the best damn doctor the world has seen. But again, how many times can you lock yourself in a room with a patient to administer drugs that you’ve been told not to, and still have a job? Yes, nearly 90% of the time his crazy method works and the patient recovers from the deadly lupus-like (but definitely, definitely not lupus) disease. But really? In reality that kind of turn around must be pretty rare. Like man returning to life after being sealed in a cave, one in a million happy easter miracle type rarity.  The hollywood glam factor dresses up the man, and what seems plausible (a well versed, multi-lingual, stolen muscle victimed, humorously ineuenndo-ed doctor) gets a little unreal (completely medically proven, no cure available paralyzed man gets up and walks, lupus doesn’t exist).

We all enjoy these shows. They are addictively enjoyable. You enjoy the story, you enjoy the character development, you enjoy the catch-22s, the cliffhangers. The enjoyment ranks so high, the glam so glossy, that for one hour a week you forget that in reality none of this could actually take place reguarly.

As much as it would be nice to believe it was true, at the end of the day we have to remember that no one can go without peeing for an entire day.