Stranger than...

So, a friend posted this on Instagram:

I feel like I'm in season 5 of my life and the writers are just making ridiculous (ish) happen to keep it interesting

On one level, it's sad but true. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a TV series for a long time looks back ruefully after the fifth or sixth year as the characters age and the situations on a situation comedy become much less comedic.  "Modern Family" is a great example of that; it's a show that rarely missed in its early days and now, as it limps across the finish line in its eleventh and final season, the laughs are just not there so much.

When you think about it, nothing is really funny after eleven years, except for seeing some pompous stuffed shift take a pratfall on the icy sidewalk outside a diner. That never fails.

Ask and I will tell it

<<<<<<< And my English hitchhiker joke.

Drama shows seem to do better as they age, but still, they can grow stale. One good thing that the "Law & Order" shows - the original, the SVU, the Criminal Intent, whatever  - do is, they change the cast every so often to keep things fresh, so with the exception of Mariska Hargitay and Ice T, you never know who will be around.

One of my favorite memories of the Diane Rehm radio show- which, by the way, was on for years and years until the host decided to give it up, and was still just as fresh the day it left as the day it began - was when Alan Alda said he didn't like fiction because, as he said, "You can tell they're just making it up as they go along."

I don't enjoy fiction for that reason, my reason being that there are 65 billion facts I have yet to learn, so why read something someone created, instead of real stuff? 

Take any of the stories in the news these days...a virus spreading, threatening to be a pandemic, a mom and her new husband (whose wife died under mysterious circumstances) can't explain where her children are, a long war is supposed to end with a truce that lasts two days, a Hollywood mogul goes to prison for crimes against women, a member of British royalty and his wife no longer wish to be part of British royalty and the world recoils in horror...who could make up these scenarios and have them be so interesting?