The Answer Is Love

I think a lot about tv. Probably more than I should given all that I have to do. But because I am Mormon and, therefore, not a beer drinker, tv is the thing that I use at the end of a long day to unwind and relax. Favorite shows come and go. We give some new, hyped-up program a chance, and sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't. Some shows we watch out of morbid curiosity (most reality tv), and some we watch because, like a good book, they have characters and plots that we care about.

Right now, Wednesday night is our primo night for good stuff. Our DVR hums with activity on Wednesday night and makes up for the wasteland of Tuesdays and Thursdays through Sunday. (Dancing With The Stars still brightens our Monday evenings with lots of glittery fringe.) On Wednesday, we get Revolution, Nashville, Top Chef, and Arrow - four hours of what I like to call "high quality programming."

Arrow is strictly for me. Suzy has never seen an episode, and that's okay. It's a modernized adaptation (a la Superman in Smallville) of the DC superhero Green Arrow. It's fun to see physical versions of characters I've been into since I was a kid, and the writing is good. Most every character has an arc and evolves a little with each episode. I bank up two or three of them and binge watch when Suzy goes to a church activity or something.

Top Chef is simply Top Chef. It's one of the less exploitive, more enjoyable reality shows. The personalities are big, but more importantly the talent is big. I enjoy watching experts do their thing. It fascinates me. Tom Colicchio is getting curt and crabby in his old age and Padma Lakshmi seems to be on auto-pilot in this, their 11th season, but it's still fun to watch.

This brings me to our other two shows: Revolution and Nashville. Thanks to the magic of DVR, we usually watch them one after the other after the girls have gone to bed and we have a solid two hour block to just veg out. Because they are always right up against each other, I've given some thought to the differences in the two shows and in our reactions to them.

Revolution is a sci fi show that takes place in a future when all electrical power is gone. Something happened and suddenly there was no power of any kind other than steam and other pre-electrical sources. The country falls apart and society basically devolves. The story focuses on one family who have various connections to the reason why the power went out in the first place as well as to the crazy military government that rose up after the fall of the United States.

It got a lot of hype leading up to its premiere last year, and Suzy and I were both intrigued. Dystopia can be fun, you know? So we started watching last year, and spent a lot of time making fun of some of the bad acting (Tracy Spiridakos, are there Razzie Awards for television? If so, you're gonna clean up, sister!) and counting how many people died literally by the sword in each episode. (Guns are in short supply, so most people defend themselves with knives and swords.) But we kept watching because we were interested in seeing what happened next.

Nashville is a drama set in the titular city and revolves around the lives of people involved at various levels  of the country music scene (struggling singer/songwriters, old established stars, agents, managers, etc.) The central character, Rayna James, is a Faith Hill/Reba Mcentire type - a "queen of country," and we follow her as she tries to continue her career while raising her daughters, dealing with her flawed but ambitious husband, navigating a relationship with the true love of her life and bandleader, and facing off with a young upstart Carrie Underwood type. Some would argue it's a soap opera, and it might be hard to argue otherwise. There's bedhopping, secrets, and dramatic revelations about fake pregnancies and that sort of thing. I would argue though that, if it is a soap opera, it's an excellent one and not because of it's extremity or absurdity (see Desperate Housewives.)

It's excellent for the same reason that I look forward to it far more than Revolution.

Before I go further, I should point out that, on the surface of things, I should enjoy Revolution way more than I do Nashville. R has action and an impressive speculative future where the WHOLE FATE OF CIVILIZATION AND MAYBE THE WORLD hang in the balance. N is about country music which I don't really even like and has precious little in the way of what might be called "action." Lots of people talking in rooms, you know?

So why am always excited for Nashville and generally "meh" about Revolution? The answer is love. I don't mean Valentine's Day, hearts and flowers love, although there is that. I mean, the characters in Nashville experience love with and for each other. Parent/child, friends, mentor/student, husband/wife, etc. I am convinced that that these characters are, for the most part, three dimensional human beings who go through their lives giving and receiving love in its various forms - compassion, devotion, desire, forgiveness, affection, etc.

Revolution, for all its budget and big name talent (Jon Favreau co-created and produces), lacks love. It is ultimately a plot-driven show that cares more about what happens than about who it happens to. It is a puzzle to solve and little more. The characters, even those who are supposed to love each other, are simply cardboard cutouts with swords, acting as placeholders. They're meant to represent real people but aren't actually emotionally real in any way.

I took an acting class in college, and our textbook was by the famed teacher Uta Hagen. One of the chapters focused entirely on the importance of finding the love in every scene. Didn't matter if it was Shakespeare, Miller, Wilson, or a new scene fresh from the hands of some untested playwright - every human being experiences love, even if it's only in the form of wanting it or not having enough of it. Hagen argued that if you want your character on stage to be a real, convincing human being, you have to find the love in that person. I think that is absolutely true for any kind of character, written or performed.

So, I know I began by saying I was thinking about tv, but what I really mean is, I've been thinking a lot about stories. TV shows are just one form of storytelling in our 21st century world, and, I would argue, one of the most important and powerful. But because I am teaching a creative writing class this semester and have been reading a lot of stories that involve trick endings, jokey premises, and an almost rabid insistence of writing sci fi or fantasy, I have been trying to articulate what it is I want from stories of any kind.

There are lots of reasons to read or watch or listen to stories. But in the end, for me at least, I want stories because I want to feel something, and since we spend our lives (or should) pursuing love - for and from our family, for and from God, for and from our fellow man, doesn't it make sense to seek out stories that help me to experience and understand that emotion better?

One of my mentors, Scott Samuelson, once told me that he reads "in order to love people more." The older I get and the more I think about my relationship to stories and storytelling, the more this makes sense to me. I'm not saying Nashville is some kind of spiritual experience or a guide to how to live your life. Not at all. What I'm saying is is that it accomplishes what good stories do: it makes me care about not only what happens but who it's happening to.