I 

was talking to a friend of mine about a recent episode 
of “This Is Us,” a show I’ve written about substantially 
in the past. She was telling me how she’s dreading the 

moment when the show goes off the cliff. It’s a general fear 
about the show not being able to maintain its quality over its 
run. My response, though, was why not trust the show to be 
good and enjoy it while it’s at its peak? Every TV show fades 
at least a little before it ends, but there are too many strong 
moments in great shows to not celebrate them.

The problem with this view is I sometimes end up spurned 

by TV that lost its quality over its run. Last summer, thinking 
about this phenomenon, I wrote about “Scandal.” At its best, 
the series ran like a runaway freight train, moving through 
story and plot twists at a breakneck pace. But this season, 
it seemed to run out of momentum and doubled down on 
boring stories and ideas that stopped surprising me. There 
were fleeting moments, but I kept wishing for more from it 
and for it to show me why I liked it in the first place.

That failure on the part of “Scandal” left a bitter taste in 

my mouth, but there were times when skepticism almost got 
the better of me in my viewing. My favorite show on the air 
right now is “Jane the Virgin.” If you read the logline at face 
value — “a virgin is accidentally artificially inseminated by 
another man’s sperm” — it sounds completely ridiculous. 
But I gave the show a chance, and I am so grateful I did. It’s 
one of the kindest, warmest and funniest shows on network 
TV right now, but if I had maintained my skepticism, I 
would never have stuck with it.

I think this sense of taking a chance on TV comes from an 

inherent sense of optimism from which I look at the world. 
I’ve always looked at situations with a sense of “why this 
will be good” rather than “how this can and will go wrong.” 
That’s just a part of who I am as a person, and, in this case, it 
extends to how I watch my TV.

To go back to “This Is Us” though, I can see why someone 

would be doubtful about its ability to continue on its path. It 
has a very high degree of difficulty for what it wants to do. 
But, for now, watching Sterling K. Brown, who’s so good in 
his role, and the family dynamics are enough for me to very 
much enjoy what I’m seeing.

At this point, I’ve reviewed dozens of shows and watched 

dozens of others. However, I don’t approach TV with the 
skepticism of a veteran TV watcher. I still try to give every 
new show a chance to prove itself before I write it off. 
Whether it’s a serialized drama or the most basic sitcom, 
there’s always the chance it will go off the rails, but why not 
try to give it a shot? Maybe I’m inherently optimistic, but 
there’s still every reason to enjoy something I like, without 
having to worry about when the experience will go bad.

2B

Magazine Editor:

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Design Editor:

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the statement

Wednesday, November 9, 2016 / The Statement

TV and Me: Indelible Optimism 
B Y A L E X I N T N E R

the
tangent

EMILIE FARRUGIA/Daily

T H O U G H T B U B B L E : AC TIVISM

“The most important thing to me is women’s 

rights, our basic rights about our body, our right to 

vote, I don’t want to go back 50 years, we should 

have equal rights with men and with everyone.”

– School of Music, Theatre and Dance sophomore 

Sydney Sheperd

ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE HAADSMA