When the world is running down, you watch the rest of what's still around....

Anyone notice that, as the world steadily becomes an ever more dreary place, you've become more tolerant of fair to mediocre entertainment? Like stuff you might have given up on five or ten years ago you now stick with because, even if it's not great, it offers at least some escape from the current shitstorm?

Like I thought Falcon/Winter Soldier and Moon Knight were ... fine. Never really got to the level of excitement I had for WandaVision or Loki. Book of Boba Fett sort of lost steam as it went along. Picard even more so. But I kept up with all of them each week, watching as soon as I could. And while my logical brain was saying "Some of this is objectively not good," my lizard brain was saying "Cool superhero fights and spaceships and I'm not thinking about COVID or Ukraine or abortion."

And it's not like this hasn't happened before. People flocked to a lot of junk during the Great Depression, and watched a lot of junk when the threat of nuclear apocalypse felt incredibly real. Maybe something in our brains nudges us to take what small comfort we can in whatever we can when we can.

Or maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age....

Makes sense, anything to take our minds off the madness. This attitude could help explain the explosion of streaming services and the associated incredible demand for content to fill those services.

Not me, I'm still a quitter!

I ditched Hellbound, Stranger Things, Schitts Creek, Sex Education and WandaVision after 4 eps each.

Other shows - After Life, Vikings, Altered Carbon - I made to the end of S1 but either quit there or a couple of eps into S2. I even quit Loki halfway through the final episode! (Although I did eventually go back and finish it months later after seeing Jonathan Majors in The Harder They Fall.)

The one thing I've been sticking with despite not really enjoying it is Breaking Bad, but ... y'know ... it's Breaking Bad. I'm in it till the end just because (1) it's considered an all-timer, so it's worthwhile as a homework assignment and (2) they made a spin-off featuring the best character and I'm not watching that dessert till I finish these vegetables. It's also not "fair to mediocre", so it doesn't really belong in this thread, but I've already typed up this paragraph and unfortunately there's no way to delete it.


Edit 1:
I do get you though Rich, I stuck with Boba Fett, the Cowboy Bebop remake and Falcon and the Winter Soldier through to the end even though I wasn't loving them. Then again, if they made an S2 of those shows the latter two would end up in that Altered Carbon/Vikings/Afterlife column.


Edit 2:
Oh yeah, I also quit Cobra Kai 4 episodes in.

Humblebrag?