Escape Pause

When the real world crashes our diversion.

Things have been heavy lately, so I sat down last week to write about how I can’t stop watching Midsomer Murders, because I wanted to write something light. If you don’t know, Midsomer Murders is the procedural equivalent of a Peter Pan color and prairie skirt, a show set in the fictional equivalent of the Cotswolds or some other English village that premiered in 1997 and has been running ever since.  There are endless towns in the fictional Midsomer, and each week one of them is having a festival. There are tents and jams and tombolas, and always a pub. And of course, death. Some of the deaths are even cartoonishly gruesome, like when an orchid grower is stabbed with a pitchfork.

I find watching a murder mystery incredibly satisfying in our uncertain times. There is an agreement between the show and the viewer that at the end of the program you will get an answer to the question “Who done it?” and the bad guy will see justice. It’s incredibly cathartic when you’re living in a time short on answers and you’re watching as so many men, including one who may be President again, skirt the law.

Here's the problem: I had seen everything. I was so far down the bottom of the Britbox barrel that I came out in Australia for a while - and then I watched all of those programs, too. Plus, I have certain criteria for shows I want to watch: I’m tired of seeing women in jeopardy; women who know the truth and aren’t believed; women being gaslit; women who do not realize their husbands have second families; or women being oppressed. It’s like a busman’s holiday. I find myself getting anxious and that’s not why I watch TV. I watch TV so I can turn off the terrors and give my brain a break.