I first wrote about not being able to find anything interesting to watch on Netflix back in 2022. Upon reflection, my disappointment with all streaming content began years earlier. My wife and I enjoyed binging dozens of great series like The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy, Battlestar Galactica, Lost and The Closer. We also enjoyed many movies that we hadn’t seen at the theater or on DVD.
Unfortunately, for every great show, there are hundreds of poorly made knock-offs. And every clever plot, filming technique or theme spawns multitudes of poorly made copycats.
What that means for me is that I’ve run out of anything interesting to watch on Netflix, Amazon Prime, AppleTV or Peacock. I haven’t used any of the the other streamers and gave up on cable TV more than five years ago.
I am dismayed that there are thousands of shows and nothing I want to watch.
When I was a little kid, I loved watching TV shows at night and cartoons in the afternoon after school (and on Saturday mornings). But I was an active kid and could only watch my favorite shows for an hour or so before leaving to do something else.
In high school and college, I stopped watching TV nearly altogether. I once went 2 years without watching any TV at all and didn’t miss it. I was busy. I had friends to hang out with, studying to do, places to go and people to see.
The most TV I watched in my life was during the last 10 years of my marriage. My wife and I had settled into a routine of watching TV while eating dinner. We’d cook or order take-out to eat on the sofa while watching. I was usually fried from work by the end of the day and she, being 19 years older than me, was happy to relax in the comfort of our home surrounded by our pets.
I got used to this. We’d walk the dog in the evening, pickup our food and then unwind together.
I missed our dinner routine after my wife died. Dinner became an especially lonely time.
I still miss those days with Ellen but have become accustomed to eating under the watchful eyes of my begging dogs while watching mediocre, at best, shows on my iPad.
It is time for that to change. I’ve accepted that for whatever reason, I am bored with all shows. As a substitute, I might try reading books. I’ll browse the internet. I find Wikipedia more entertaining than 90% of what is recommended on Netflix.
I still like to relax and unwind at dinner surrounded by my pets. The chapter of my life where I did this with my wife is over. Now it appears my dinnertime routine with streaming is too.
I don’t think I’ll miss it this time though.