Why we only watch one episode at a time!

I have a very active imagination. If you think Ally McBeal without the neurotic self interest, you're kind of on the right track. My brain is forever putting a strange slant and a technicolour luminescence onto the ordinary things I see every day. I personally blame Roald Dahl. I read that man's books so often growing up that he actually moved in, became my inner monologue and never left. Mr Dahl is why I have that special knack with metaphors.

Roald aside, my over-active imagination doesn't need a lot of stimulus to shift my brain into a different gear. For example, if I watch enough episodes of one particular television show, my brain starts living in that particular world. This is one reason why I am limited to a maximum of two Scrubs episodes a day - I associate far too well with Perry Cox and in real life cutting monologues just make people cry.

When I went through my Buffy phase there was a whole three month period of my life where I couldn't go out after dark because I would almost have a panic attack because I was so convinced that I was going to be leapt upon by some fell beastie. Then there was the X-files phase...same concept, different type of beastie. House was worse...every weird tingle was some unusual form of terminal cancer pressing into an interesting part of my brain. Neurotically speaking, I peaked with "Dexter". The concept of living with a man who was secretly a sociopathic serial killer at odds with the rest of society cut a little too close to home (read my husband's blog yet? It's a curious mix of angst, anarchy and other things starting with "A". Check it out at http://seekingxen.blogspot.com/ Be warned, it's much darker than anything you'll read here.)

Aside from the interesting impacts on the way I view my world, watching a bunch of episodes of one show all at once also gives you a glaring insight into the fact that almost every TV show is formulaic. Spread out with one episode per week you don't really notice. Crashed all into a day and they're annoyingly repetitive. See if I'm wrong;

The Simpsons; Homer is an ass, Marge is doubting and yet subservient, Bart is naughty, Lisa is angsty and Maggie is almost as vapid as Santa's Little Helper. Homer will run afoul of either Flanders or Mr Burns, Bart will run afoul of Skinner or Nelson, Lisa will agonise.

Sex and the City: Carrie is the most annoying, whiny swizzle stick on the planet and is pretty much responsible for all of the drama in her life. Originally, when I was watching this one on a week-to-week basis, I thought Mr Big treated her terribly. Then I watched a whole season and realised that actually, he was just trying to have a good time with what appeared to be a sane, hot chick and it turned out that she was a neurotic stalker-type psycho. Every new season was pretty much that theme on a loop against a backdrop of various men.

Supernatural; Dean, stop being so immature and Sam, quit whining.

Medium; Alison will have a premonition. Everyone - especially her husband - will doubt her, but she'll be proven right in the end and he will eat crow.

NCIS: Some horribly obscure crime will be related to the Navy, Gibbs will butt heads with some other agency, Abby will be gothic, cool, nerdy and clingy all at once, at some point Gibbs will get to hit, shoot or glare at something... yeah...you get the drift.

Voila. I bet I can do that for almost every show on television. Anyone else had their favourite show reduced to a formula after watching too much of it?