The Curse of Netflix

My friends have made fun of me for years about my soap opera addiction.

I'm currently down to one. I never stay home to watch it, I tape it.

What most people don't realize is that most of the popular network programs

are various forms of soap operas… but they call them dramas.

What is Downton Abby? It's a sophisticated English drama. It has all

the good makings of a good soap opera.

Downton is a great story with interesting characters, good drama, happy, sad and the all-important cliff hanger.

A rose by any other name is still a rose. Downtown Abby took place almost

100 years ago and it shows the rich, and the not so rich, and their continuing drama. Mixing it in with all the British accents and the British wry humor makes it even better.

Enter Netflix.

Netflix has been my husband’s and my favorite TV savior for the past two or three years.

Summer is a slow time for television unless you like reality shows, game shows, or other TV that doesn't make fall’s prime time schedule.

So what's a married couple to do in the evening?

We can't go clubbing every night, too tired. Why pay 10 bucks for a movie when three-

fourths of them aren't worth our time. Too tired to read too.

So for the first year on Netflix we watched a variety of different entertaining shows. House of Cards was probably our favorite.

As time went on we entered into the Spanish dramas. You do have to read the subtitles to follow the story.

After you get through with the shock of having to read fast and watch TV at the same time, the dramas are really entertaining.

The hardest part for me, since I'm a multi-tasker, was to actually watch TV the whole time. I couldn't turn my head to do something else.

We found a few Spanish dramas that we really liked. Some were just one season long. Others continued on for several seasons. When they were done we missed our new “friends”.

This year we hit the jackpot. Turkish TV. The dramas were compelling, the characters were funny, talented and unusual.

The plots were really good and the scenery was gorgeous.

The first Turkish drama we got involved with was called “Intersection”. Much to our chagrin the episodes were 2 1/2 hours and there were 50 of them.

Staying up ‘till one and two in the morning at our age, is no picnic.  We had to snack most of the

night just keep up our energy. After having several bleary-eyed days we limited our overnight bingeing to weekends.

However when Intersection ended we went into withdrawal. We had no idea what we were going to do to get out of this.

We missed our friends, they were like part of our family. We actually picked up some Turkish words. What were we to do?

Lo and behold the streaming master of our house, my husband, found a new Turkish program to watch that was compelling, interesting and fun.

And the best part was each program was only 45 minutes long. We figured no more binge watching.

Little did I know there were 122 episodes, like five years of programming on U.S. network television. I gave up after 70. It was too gut wrenching, sad, too many tears, too much drama.

The only downside is most of the characters that I like once again become my friends. If anybody gets whacked off, or heartbroken, I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it. Therapy may be necessary to get over this one.

My husband is persevering through the end and gets in bed at 12am or 1am every night and fills me in on the details.

He falls right to sleep exhaustion from the drama, and then I'm up for another hour processing it in my brain!

I now shout at the TV and pretty soon I may even start throwing things.

So I look forward to the fall. It’s when I can just watch Chicago Fire and Blacklist. No skin in the game and I can read at the same time.

And go back to sleep at a normal time.