One Season to Go

I got hooked on a TV show almost one year ago, back when I was recovering from surgery and hanging out on the living room sofa. Tired of reading important books on important subjects and sick of being mindful and meditative, eventually I opted to pass the time watching a completely ridiculous but distracting bad drama that takes place in a hospital setting. Soon enough I recovered from my surgery and was able to rejoin the world, not knowing that I had become addicted. The regular world, with its regular people, was suddenly boring beyond words. I missed my friends on Grey's Anatomy. And in today's crazy world, where binge-watching a TV show is considered to be a worthwhile endeavor, I went back there, over and over. Now I prefer it to real life.

It's not like I don't know the show is ridiculous. The plots are outrageous; obviously the writers have access to some serious drugs. The episodes all go something like this:

She likes him and he likes her too, but then she starts to remind him of his former lover who died in a plane crash/boat sinking/plague in a foreign country and ends the affair abruptly. Ironically, after they break up they are trapped together under a burning bus that is about to explode. But before it does, she is forced to amputate his leg in order for him to escape. Afterward they marry, but it doesn't last. 

A woman undergoes a C-section in a mammoth sinkhole with no anesthesia or even an aspirin, performed by her 11-year-old  daughter who is receiving instructions via cell phone from a doctor who is miles away. The cell service is spotty and eventually the call is lost. The patient screams but does not pass out and the baby is delivered but has serious issues, requiring an immediate heart-lung transplant. Fortunately, an ambulance arrives in time. 

Everyone involved is extremely attractive and they all have sex with each other at work and nobody gets in trouble for it. Also, nobody gets the clap or herpes. Nobody is ever seen inside a supermarket. They eat badly in the hospital cafeteria but are still thin. There is no housework; you never see a bed being made, although once someone did a load of laundry. Many of the characters have children who are rarely seen or heard from. Nobody talks about their kids. In between all this, there are gory surgeries. People live or die, accompanied by an edgy soundtrack of the most esoteric popular music.

Still, I watch. Happily it's almost over--only one season to go. Then what?