Tonight is the gripping season finalé of Grey's Anatomy, and I know exactly what's going to happen, and exactly when it will happen. On the off chance that someone reading is a Grey's nut without access to the internet (hang on...), I'll leave it at that.
Here's the Seven promo:
(Briefly, a word about
Grey's - I don't get it. I find myself sucked in by the melodrama - and there's not much else on Thursdays now that
SVU has moved nights - but I can't handle the way it swings wildly from
Gilmore Girls-esque chatty comedy to full-blown medical drama. WTF was up with that dude throwing himself out the window and onto the car? The college chick who'd been completely disembowled? Who cares, in the next scene we'll be all pow-pow with the hilarious lesbians! I'll still be glued to the set tonight, of course.)
Anyway, yes,
Grey's finale. Been there done that. Albeit in a text format.
Remember that scene in
When Harry Meets Sally where Billy Crystal as Harry reveals he always reads the last page of a book first, "That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends"?
Well, that kinda sorta has to do with today's Tube Ray Army, in which I discuss to you a habit of mine that has caused major rifts between me and my dedicated television-loving friends. Ready for another group therapy session?
I Wikipedia season finalés.
There, I said it.
And not only that, but crucial episodes, plot twists You'll Never See Coming™, shocking conclusions to drawn out storylines, etc. If it's being trumpeted by the network, chances are I long ago looked them up. (If it helps to imagine me as
this guy from
Make Love Not Warcraft, then so be it; I've made my bed.)
There are two friends in particular, both card-carrying members of the "television is the new cinema" religion (and at times, I carry the same card), for whom this is completely unforgivable.
More than once I've been yelled at, barked into submission, asked "How could you do that?!" and witnessed hands being waved over heads in disbelief. Mostly because, when lent the
Six Feet Under compendium, about halfway through Season 3, I Wiki'd this:
And this:
To them, I was ruining the magic; breaking the fourth wall (or something). But I didn't watch these moments before time, I just read about them. (And I
still stand by my opinion that the final episode's postscript is PANTS.)
Part of the problem is that, living as we do on our tropical island paradise, most shows have well and truly been and gone by the time they either air here, or are released on DVD (yes, I am aware some people buy things ASAP from the States, but most people are not some people).
And DVDs are the second part of the problem - it's nearly impossible to watch television in the way we used to back in the good old bad old days. It's very difficult to imagine waiting a week for the next episode when you can just as easily pop down to JB's and pick up the entire series in a box set.
Will I ever stop doing this? Probably not. It's a compulsion of sorts, and probably reaches far back into a childhood need to know everything, blah blah blah.
So, what of you guys - are you content to sit back and let television wash all over you, or do you cheat like me?
And if someone can please explain the appeal of Grey's Anatomy to me, in depth, I will be forever grateful. I might even stop Wikicheating.