Easy Watching

It’s probably obvious from past posts that when it comes to my viewing habits, meaty, complex dramas are the things that float my boat. (Of course I’m talking television here, as opposed to those times I peer over my neighbour’s hedges, watching them through the night vision goggles).

Still, there are the odd occasions when, tired from working long hours or ploughing through a heavy workload and just managing to come out the other side, my little brain feels too feeble for something too demanding. Case in point, the latest episode of Lost where I just completely lost track of what was going on and who some of the characters were. Brian Sibley’s comment on the previous post was “Bring back Dr Richard Kimble and the one-armed-man, I say! You knew precisely where you were EVERY week!” And there are times when something a little less exacting is exactly what we need.

This was just what I wanted this evening. After a long and pretty exhausting week, a welcome lie-in was put on hold in favour of another early start to get down into Central London for Adrian Mead’s completely ace and skill Insider’s Guide to TV Drama class. That was followed by a couple of hours in the pub, getting acquainted with most of the folk who turned up.

By the time I got back home it was a welcome relief to simply slump down on the sofa and relax with something a little less demanding – in this instance, a repeat of NCIS. Should this actually be categorised as a guilty pleasure? It’s not too taxing on the brain, whether it’s feeling pin sharp or utterly feeble. Like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, it’s the easy charm and interplay between the characters, rather than the plots, which attracted me to it. And, it finished just in time to switch over to BBC2 for Götterdämmerung, which rounds off Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Although I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay up for the whole five hours - and I’ve still got the Samurai Sudoku from The Times to do – it’s still a better option to watching Patriot Games on Channel 4. Especially in the final hours of St Patrick’s Day.