This is not the same thing as just sort of phasing out with the knowledge you'll come back and finish eventually. That is what has happened with House and with Star Trek: TNG. I know I'll come back to TNG eventually, when I'm in the mood for it again. And admittedly, I suspect I'll come back to the others too. I imagine that one day I'll come back to Supernatural and get beyond season 5. In fact, right this very moment I'm trying to come back to Once Upon A Time, a show that Matt and I watched together during its first season and absolutely adored. Then season 2 happened and I made it about half way through before I stopped.
There are two sides to this, I think. The first is something I've talked about before a couple times, and that is my inability to maintain healthy levels of attachment to fictional characters. I get way too involved and I've found that the only way to deal with that is to just cut myself off from the show. When I start to care too much about Spike or the Doctor or Sherlock I simply stop watching as a sort of splash of cold water to the face: these people and these stories aren't real and you need to stop caring. It is how I deal with the betrayals that come with network TV where plotlines and character developments happen that only make sense if your decisions are entirely built around gaining and keeping viewers rather than writing and maintaining a good story. Hence my decision to stop watching Being Human when George completely breaks from character. It's how I deal with extreme tension (*spoiler*Luther getting framed for the murder of his ex wife falls into this category) that I don't want to have in my life. This, btw, is part of why I'm immune to spoilers. Fun fact about me: I frequently go onto wikipedia/IMDb and read the synopsis of whatever show that I'm watching so that I know what is coming and I don't have to have anxiety about it. This is the only way I can make it through stressful stories fairly often, and even then it sometimes isn't enough. Especially when the stressful story starts verging onto the mangling of the story/character for the sake of drama.
And the other part is my simple desire for stories to have ends. One of my favorite aspects of British television is that they do not sacrifice story arcs on the altar of numbers. Which is to say that if a show was written to have three seasons and then end, it ends after three seasons no matter how many people were watching it. There are, of course exceptions to this *cough*doctorwho*cough*, but in general, they allow good things to end whilst they're good rather than flogging them along far beyond endurance simply to make as much money as possible. A good example of this being the US and British versions of the Office. This is why I stopped watching Supernatural at the end of season 5. It was such a solid end to the story. I'm sure that the rest of the seasons have plenty of amusing parts, but I wanted to respect that ending. Of course, rarely do I have such a solid and clearly final ending to latch on to. But even so, there are times when I feel like that story has ended and I have neither the desire nor the energy to carry on (see Doctor Who, the David Tenant years).
All of this is to say that it is hard for me to give you a show I'm currently addicted to because the shows which best seem to fulfill that criteria are also the shows I am most likely to stop watching, often right at the climactic moments. If you follow me on facebook at all you know that I have cherished a deep love of Fox's The Blacklist (James Spader!!!!!) all winter. I thought that it had ended for the summer several weeks ago, but when Matt just told me that there were actually 3 or 4 more episodes for me to watch I was not excited. I had been ready to stop and now you want me to go back and reinvest before next winter? Ugh! I know they're gonna do something awful to me... You could not get more obsessed with Doctor Who than I was (that's a lie, you totally could...) but it has literally been years and I still have no desire to dive into the Matt Smith years. I was literally on my bed screaming (which, if you know me, is not how I react to movies and TV at all) and yet I probably won't watch the third episode of Sherlock till season 4 comes out...if then.
So I guess in the end, the only real answer to this question has to be Gilmore Girls. The show of my heart. The show that will never get old, no matter how many times I watch it. The show that always soothes my anxieties and is always the right thing to watch no matter the mood. Gilmore Girls is the show I will always be addicted to, no matter what other shows come and go from moment to moment. And I think that is the best possible end to this long and rambly post.
Next up is prompt 15: Something I Don't Leave The House Without
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