Television

I like watching television. If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time, you’ll know that I’m at my most blissful when I’m horizontal, glass of wine in hand, bingeing on a mystery. And this week was no different—Netflix told me that a show called “Missing You” was right up my alley, based on what I’d previously watched, and I was like, “Aw, Netflix, you know me so well!” It was a limited series with five episodes, so I climbed into bed, ready with wine and anticipation. The show began—the opening scene takes place at night. It is dark and stormy, and a handsome man dressed in a business suit is riding a horse that is galloping at breakneck speed across the moors of England. He looks terrified, and there are flashbacks of a beautiful woman that he is apparently madly in love with and desperately wants to see. Suddenly, the horse stumbles and the man is thrown off the horse, landing badly. Cut to daylight—the man is now hobbling down a country lane as fast as he can. A tractor appears behind him and starts to run him down. He falls—another man leaps out of the tractor and tasers him. You soon find out that the first man is the victim of a kidnapping. Intense, right? And it gets better—the main character is a female detective with a tragic past. She works in the Missing Persons Unit and she’s tasked with finding the man, as well as other people who’ve also gone missing. This show has it all—abduction, catfishing, a man called Leslie, a crazy-ass dog breeder and his puppies—you name it. It was really good.

Then I got to the end and something occurred to me, something that I just can’t get off my mind. And it’s this…where the f*ck did the guy get THE HORSE from?! They NEVER explain it! The detective traces him to a Bed And Breakfast in a town with nary a horse in sight, and he ends up at a farm—but NOT a horse farm—a DOG BREEDING FARM, again, with nary a horse in sight. And I have SO MANY QUESTIONS! Where did the horse come from? Whose horse was it? How come it already had a saddle? How did the businessman know how to ride a horse? Did he steal it? Was the horse reported stolen? Where did it go after it kicked him to the curb? All I could think was that there had been some very questionable decisions made in the screenwriting room:

Head Screenwriter: I have the best idea to open the show! Let’s put the East Indian guy ON A GALLOPING HORSE!!
Screenwriter 2: Where does he get the horse from?
Head Screenwriter: What? Who cares?
Screenwriter 2: People might wonder…
Head Screenwriter: NOBODY will wonder, STEVE. Besides, we can deal with that in the last episode or whatnot.

5 months later, at the premiere…

Screenwriter 2: I feel like there’s something we forgot to do…
Head Screenwriter: Are you going on about the horse AGAIN? I keep telling you, STEVE, no one will care!

Well, I care. And my OCD brain has been spinning, because Ken mentioned that I have a habit of falling asleep during TV shows and maybe I’d missed the very tiny reference to the horse. But I don’t think so, KEN. So if you happen to be watching “Missing You”, can you watch out for any horse references? Steve and I need to know.

I love reality shows. I’ve loved them ever since I was five years old and I was on a children’s reality show called Romper Room. Reality shows really are the best, especially building shows. And I’m very lucky because:

a) There’s a renovation going on across the street from us, turning a church into a family home. And while I can see updates on Facebook, I literally have a bird’s eye view of the deconstruction AND reconstruction process from my window. Whenever I’m bored, I can just look out and it feels like I’m watching TV. And here’s where it gets really meta—the renovation is actually being filmed by a network in the States and it will be on TV when it’s done. How cool is that? Also, if you’ve read my new short story collection, At The End Of It All, there’s a story called Twist of Faith which is loosely based on the opening of the cornerstone last year at that very church.

b) I work at an antique market which could very easily be the subject of a reality show, a cross between Hoarders and Storage Wars. For example, the other day, a new vendor showed up. His name is Bob and he’s like 90 and he makes birdhouses. Bob’s Birdhouses. The intention was for him to display his birdhouses on a shelf above the till but everyone forgot to brace the shelf. So he arrived, and one of my co-workers had to immediately start cutting wood for braces because Bob was PISSED. And then my co-worker had to go find a drill. He found four of them in the basement. None of them worked. But we didn’t throw them away because if we did, the owner would dig them out of the garbage and make us put them back. Then we all—me, Bob, and Bob’s wife, watched my co-worker screw the braces into the shelf, which made him very self-conscious and irritated, especially when Bob kept inspecting the braces, and I kept saying, “You should be using a Robertson bit, not a Philips.” I know this because I WATCH REALITY SHOWS, DAN.