Two years ago, I wrote about control of the television remotes. We have about six, and in a full and honest acknowledgement fair, I have no idea what most of them do. One came with the television, so that one turns it on. What the other buttons do, well, . . . . Another is cable access, thank you very much, Xfinity. Others activate “streaming” services, of which we have several and only lately have we come to use them – typically when the Princess is home and she needs to watch some obscure movie for a class. We have non-television related remotes too. Her Ladyship just got a new lamp, controlled by a remote device. She can be bathed in a warm, golden glow, or there’s a setting for a bluish light – I guess that’s in case the living room enters a cloud and fogs up. Of course, it comes with basic services too – on and off. One of its curious quirks is that, should the power blip at any point, the lamp comes on. That’s fun when I get up at 2 AM and notice light pouring out of the living room. Then I have to search for the right remote, punching off buttons on many of the wrong ones in the process and thus deprogramming as I go.
As I may have mentioned, he or she who controls the television remote controls the kingdom. In our house, Herself is master / controller of the television remote. She rules over it like Queen Victoria did the Empire. Prince Albert may have thought he had some residual authority, but in fact, not really. It resides squarely in the hands of, well, the hand. Control is seldom relinquished and even then only with deep reluctance. It’s usually if she’s still in bed in the morning, or if she’s tucked in for the night. In those cases, I wait a discreet amount of time, then cautiously approach the remote, fingers trembling.
We approach “remoting”, as I call it , very differently. I will flip through the stations, watching little sniglets of what’s on each station. If I see something I like, I’ll stay on it. Her Ladyship, on the other hand, uses the guide to make lightning-fast selections and preventing me from . She relies entirely on name recognition. If something isn’t on her “watch” list, well, then, no point in stopping. With our set-up, there’s bound to be something is going on in the background, that you can see faintly in outlines but not really discern. You hear the dialog: “Look at that over there – we have to get out of here.” But, we have no idea what “that” is, what they saw or how they’re going to escape, because we’re looking at every channel’s programming for the next three hours. If it’s an episode of “Law and Order”, we’ll have to pause on “info” to see which one it is. After we’ve gone through the entire guide, which is about two thousand stations, she’ll turn to me and say, “There’s nothing on.” That’s usually my cue to pick up my book. Or she’ll say, “Did you see anything you liked?” I may have, but it was fifteen hundred shows back and went by in a blur, so all recall is gone.
I don’t always sleep through the night. At those times, I’m positively giddy using the remote with reckless abandon. Of course, at the times I’m watching, a fair bit is paid programming. (Why am I paying ungodly amounts to see the same air fryer on fifteen channels? Has the ginsu knife lost its appeal on tv? Maybe I’ll just Google it, and then the ads will pop up on every site. But I digress.) So I progress through movies that should never have been made – there’s a significant amount of blood and gore on late at night. Apparently the Sci-Fi folks rule the airwaves from 2 – 4 AM. I can find a travel show, an old episode of House Hunters (see my previous rants insightful writings), or some historical show that keeps me going until I fall asleep and head back to bed. I flip through all the channels, try out some of the functions. On occasion, quite by mistake, l’ll deprogram the thing or inadvertently change the settings. Then I have to shut it off and start again. My system of realignment is usually pressing random buttons until something happens. Not an entirely successful strategy, but at some point, it will return to normal programming. Or I turn off the tv, return to bed, and pretend that it was the nightly auto-update that was entirely at fault. That darned box never works properly. It’s like the Facetime that calls our daughter at 3 AM faithfully every day. I have no idea how I did that, and at some point will have to go to the Verizon store and have them fix it.
When our daughter is home, that adds a new dimension, an altering of the television chemistry. We two old people have fallen into patterns of viewing that are not really in keeping with younger generations. For example, we watch shows when they’re actually being broadcast. I know, right? How quaint is that? When herself is in residence, we “binge” – usually shows that she watches and is trying to convince us we will like. “Give it a chance” could be on her coat-of-arms. And from time to time and to our complete surprise, we do get into it. We did that recently, and by season three, we were fully up to speed. Of course, season four won’t be on until 2024, so we’ll have totally forgotten it and be back to our usual programming.
What happened to the traditional television year, I want to know? It started in the fall – usually mid-September, with new shows until mid-winter. You could count on this. If you missed one, the reruns would start about February or March. Then they’d rerun again through the summer. This was a time-honored cycle. There was the cliffhanger (“Who shot JR?”) that would bring us right back in the fall. Now we have the big season finale that will keep us on the edge of our seats until – when? When is this coming back? Did I miss it? Wait – next May? Are you serious? As the attention spans of human beings gets progressively shorter, the wait time for new programming gets longer and longer, in part recently to the pandemic disrupting the taping schedule. We have to shake things up a bit. Of course, we’ve got great new shows in development. Air those for two or three episodes, and if it hasn’t caught on, dump it. Gone forever. If it’s captured a “niche market” or a “loyal following”, that’s the kiss of death. You’ll need to buy the DVD’s, and who even has a player any more?
When Princess Elizabeth was home for Mother’s Day, we were out shopping or doing something that involved travel. She explained to me the differences among “broadcast”, “cable”, “streaming”, and something else – I forget. PBS is not actually a thing – apparently it’s a “service” because, well, don’t really remember that either but something to do with its charter. I always thought that broadcast was a comprehensive, overarching term for anything I was watching at the time. Not so, say the experts. They’re all different, like coffee – whole bean, ground, flavored, and k-cups. Some I can even watch on my iPad, should I desire a small screen experience. Some folks, I’m told, watch shows (I can’t call them broadcasts) on their phones. Why one would want to do this, unless you’re stuck in traffic or waiting in line at the DMV, I have no idea.
It’s early, so I’ll just pop out and play with the remotes. I’d use the “voice activated” feature, but it might wake up Her Ladyship. That’s a scary proposition, so I won’t even try. I bought a stylish holder to proudly display them all, which has earned me considerable ridicule.
I flip through the stations until something looks good or a message pops up on the screen that it’s due for a daily update. Do I let it proceed, or do I skip it.? I press skip, because in my dozy state at 2 AM, who has the time for an update? I’m thinking . . . . . . . .not now.
I'm Thinking...No! 