Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [117]
Anyway, that's ballooning.
Now, why was I telling you this?
Oh, I know! Because it's exactly what making season two of the show felt like.
“Did you hear, did you hear what happened?” gasped the excitable hobbit on my first day back after my operation, her voice an unoiled hinge.
Unable to walk fast, or even fully breathe due to the hole between my ribs that was (according to Science) meant to be healing, I sank deep into one of the plush square armchairs in reception, wincing all the way down.
“For the new season, the network is moving the show forward by an hour, to Mondays at 8 P.M.”
“No!”
A great pit opened up in my stomach. Just below the pit between my ribs.
To me, this was the worst possible news.
Time slots are crucial. They tell you everything about a show: 9 P.M. means “adult;” it hints at grown-up situations, intelligent humor; it's a warning to pack the kids off to bed and maybe put a paper bag over the head of any old folks and wheel them back into their “special cupboard,” because something a little more challenging and racy may be on its way. Whereas 8 P.M.—that's what's called “family viewing.” Ugh. My heart sinks every time I hear those words. Years ago, it used to be a good thing, but not any more, not since the word “family” was hijacked by the Christian Right and came to be synonymous with safe, mediocre, insipid, condescending, predictable, derivative programming from major networks feverishly pandering to the self-righteous sensibilities of the Dimwit Demographic. Nowadays, with few exceptions, 8 P.M. is the dumping ground for pap fare. Mass blah entertainment. Shows to shoot yourself by. A time when everyone watching TV pretty much knows they'll be treated as if they're five.
“Are you okay?” the hobbit asked, seeing my face turn even paler than it usually is.
“It's fine. I'm fine.”
It wasn't, though. And I wasn't.
Predictably, when the new season of fourteen shows debuted, the time slot confused many viewers. Six weeks into the season, I was still getting e-mails from fans.
Hi,
Love your show, but I have not seen a new episode for a couple months. Do you have any insight?
—Tom.
Hey, are you taking a break? Haven't seen your show lately.
Later, Randy.
Of course, I did what I could. Wore my thumbs to stumps on my BlackBerry, updating them about our new time slot and how fabulous it was; so much better than our old time slot at 9 P.M. because … well… I have no idea what cockamamie excuse I gave; I just made something up, aware as I was writing that my efforts wouldn't make even a tiny dent in the number of mystified viewers who scanned the schedules every Monday and, not finding us where they expected us to be, gave up looking.
Shame, because, to my surprise, everyone went into season two feeling so much happier. Rifts had been patched up, apparently, and sources of crew annoyance addressed; Fat Kid even chose to speak more softly a lot of the time, which was a huge step forward. Additionally, having been forced over the previous few months into addressing the worst of my phobias—in particular speed, wild animals, heights, spiders, horses, and water1—I was feeling a lot more relaxed about the adventures to come. But above all, the shows were simply better-produced, thanks in the main to Jay's superior story-telling skills, even if individual situations within those stories were so contrived that they could only have been devised by monkeys high on methamphetamine.
In each case, the resulting train of events was entirely believable, but only if you didn't stop for a second to think about what you were being told, or to ask awkward questions. Questions such as—off the top of my head—how is it possible for an ordinary man, on his first trip to Seattle, to be invited into Microsoft's headquarters, casually bypassing security measures that couldn't be breached by a crack team of Marines armed with F-16s and nerve gas, and run around playing freely with their new inventions? And maybe I'm naive, but what are the chances of a guy who's all washed up in Philadelphia taking shelter