Tuesday, October 2, 2007

big crush and broken heart, all in one weekend

Hello, gentle reader. Have I been busy lately, or just a lazy blogger? The world may never know.

Sometime in September, a Netflix DVD arrived in the mail: Ballykissangel, disc 1.


I wasn't sure how it got in my queue; probably a Netflix recommendation based on my enduring love for the BBC. A week or so later I got around to watching it. And kept watching it. And then watched it some more. The first two series (seasons) were short and went down quick. If you haven't seen it, think Northern Exposure in Ireland. If you haven't seen Northern Exposure, for shame. Rural town full of quirky characters; enter new guy. In this case, Father Peter Clifford, an outsider in the form of an English priest. And of course, enter Assumpta, the feisty, clergy-hating love interest, which for Father Clifford adds an extra-crunchy layer of complication. As a good Lutheran girl I've never had a crush on a priest before, but if it's got to happen, he may as well be fictitious.

I couldn't wait the interminable two-day turnaround time for Netflix to send me series 3, so I did something I never do: I sought out spoilers on the internet to find out what happened. And I'm glad I did. It gave me time to recover from the shock and then grieve before I saw the episodes for real. They ended the Peter/Assumpta era of the show in such a shocking, unexpected way, I actually felt like something tragic had happened in my life. I'm still not ready to move on to the last 3 series they made. I suppose it's a sign of good acting and good writing that I got so enamored with the characters so quickly, but I still feel a bit betrayed by the creators.

It may be possible that these TV series binges are not good for my mental health (confession time: last winter I watched all 5 seasons of Alias in less than a month). But hey, it's better than crack. That's a valid rationalization, right?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oooh, remember the crack cookies? The ones shaped like the alphabet. Is the show better than the cookies?

alicia said...

Hmmm, tough call. The cookies never made me sad. But they didn't have fun Irish accents either.