Watching TV - there must be a trick that I'm missing

[mothwing]

How do you guys watch TV?

This is a serious question. Ever since I got sick I rediscovered watching TV in an attempt to brighten my mood. Turns out it's not as effortless as I thought it was, because pretending that things never happened to keep my mood from plummeting isn't effortless, relaxed entertainment.

It used to be easy before I got sick - turn on TV, forget I am a gay woman and that I actually care about people, go.

Now, not only can I not forget I'm a gay woman, I'm also no longer able to appreciate cynicism because again, it hurts my mood. And I like being in a good mood. I only started watching TV again because it requires comparatively less effort than reading and since my expectations of TV are so low that I'm not as easily disappointed or hurt by issues relating to LGBT people/gender/race, bad characters, bad writing, historical inaccuracies, you name it.

Still, even given my really low expectations, it's getting harder and harder to watch TV without needing to make a conscious effort to pretend that what you just saw did not happen and force your mind to black out whatever comedy or sitcom just drove home that people like me deserve to die/be raped/be tortured/be in pain because that's funny.

Is there a trick to this that I'm missing? If you watch TV, I'd like to know what your methods are, and I'd also be really grateful for recommendations for funny series.

Comments

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I don't really watch funny series, except for detective/forensics shows where the characters banter a lot, and so far all of those except Lie to Me (which is less funny, but also the only one where the sexual tension between the two main characters doesn't piss me off and the politics are less O_o-inducing) have done episodes that seriously pissed me off (Bones, for example, has done a lot more with queer characters a lot better than many shows, and has STILL failed spectacularly a couple times).

For the most part, neither MI-5 nor Inspector Lewis has really bugged me, but neither is funny, and MI-5 is big on killing off major characters, and Inspector Lewis is totally about a couple guys, so...I don't know.

Mostly I go for drama over comedy and British over American (although British shows aren't perfect). And I get mad a lot.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I usually stick to British series if I can as well. I ought to give those MI-5 and Inspector Lewis a try. :) Sometimes the series that are about guys only are better.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

MI-5 has really great female characters, I think. The two main characters (I guess?) are guys, but it's really an ensemble show. It's not a gender-balanced ensemble show, but they do well with the female characters they do have. Of course, it's also a spy show, so there have been a certain number of Muslim terrorist storylines--but I think they've handled them in a much more nuanced way than most TV, and there have also been a lot of IRA-etc. terrorist storylines and non-terrorist storylines. That said, as of the last season I watched, both of my favorite female characters were off the team, as was one I liked a lot who kind of vanished for vague reasons. The only major female character left was one who really bugs me; I don't know who they bring on in the season following that. Granted, most of my favorite male characters were also off the team or dead by that point, too! It's that kind of show.

My biggest issue with Inspector Lewis is that the police chief has been somewhat one-dimensional "hard-ass boss who's no fun", and she's one of the two major female characters (the other is a medical examiner and awesome). I think she's getting more character depth, but I'm not sure if she ever gets much. But I do love Lewis and Hathaway, and the show does really well at creating well-paced interesting mysteries that are actually hard to predict and feel really grounded in Oxford (at least to me--I've never been to Oxford, but they feel like that have a strong sense of place). Although it's usually about murders, the focus is very much on motivations and detecting, not on forensics or gore.