I cited a FNSC ending in My Great Shame a few journal entries back, but I never indicated what was My Great Shame. A few people already know about My Great Shame because I exposed those people to it. I’m not sure if I exposed them because I wanted them to share in my misery or if I was using this exposure as an excuse to continue in my shame.
However, I have been motivated by other people’s strength in the last few weeks to quit my shame. If Jen, Derrick, Jill and Sara can quit or work on quitting smoking, I assuredly could give up my shame. It is after all, not a physical addiction.
I witnessed some of the strategies that others have used to quit smoking. Cinnamon sticks. Only smoking at work. Not smoking at work. I tried in vain to step down with a crutch, but it didn’t work. I had to quit cold turkey.
It was My Great Shame, but I can proudly proclaim that I have been free of its demon clutches for three weeks now.
What is My Great Shame?
The Starz Original show Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
This easily has to be the worst scripted program to ever grace the airwaves. I’m pretty sure that it is written by junior high students hopped up on meth. It is a combination of 3 things: extremely bizarre and gratuitous sex scenes, extremely ridiculous bloody battle scenes and the most pathetically-written-profanity-laced-dialogue ever. The dialogue makes the dialogue in Games and Quietus appear that it was written by Shakespeare.
Despite the fact that it is beyond horrible, I couldn’t stop watching it and I was ashamed. I knew it was clearly beneath me and didn’t belong in the guilty pleasure category like Just One of the Guys.
The best excuse I can give for watching this wretched show was that I couldn’t wait to see what ridiculously stupid thing would happen in the next scene or in the next episode.
I wrote to Andree, Baier and Russell and told them about how I couldn’t stop watching this terrible show. At least Baier and Andree watched it and came to a similar conclusion as me. This was truly the worst scripted program in the history of television.
I decided that I wasn’t strong enough to quit cold turkey. I spent a Sunday watching Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus and backed it up with Ben-Hur. I figured watching excellent historical drama would cleanse my palette and free me from the grip that this show had on me.
However, while I was watching Kurbrick’s Spartacus I got a text from Jill about how her dad loved Spartacus: Blood and Sand. She had rightfully mocked him for watching this terrible show. I didn’t think that this information would lead to a relapse for me, but it did.
On the Thursday of that week I was at Jen and Derrick’s house. Derrick told me that they were spending the upcoming Saturday with his parents. I was gripped with an uncontrollable urge to expose them to Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I grabbed their remote and loaded up an episode from the OnDemand menu. I fast forwarded through most of the episode and we watched the scene where Spartacus defeats Theokoles.
Then I just told them to ask Derrick’s dad about the show.
I walked out of their house knowing this terrible show was out of my life forever.
The previous Friday was the Jucy Lucy experimental Friday Night Supper Club. Near the end of the night I was aimlessly flipping channels when I came across the brand new episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I told Jay and Willy that they HAD to see this show. Everybody should experience what might be the worst show in the history of television. I apologized to Dawn for subjecting her to such a thing as this show.
Jay and Willy agreed that this show was wretched but it had a certain lure to it. You do want to keep watching to see what extremely bizarre and terrible thing that they are going to do next.
Dawn “pretended” to get a text message in the middle of the show and left.
I woke up the morning following exposing Jen and Derrick to the show and felt terrible about being powerless against the dreadful allure of this awful show. My self-esteem took a beating. I looked in the mirror (not literally) and I quit Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
I walked away from the show that day. It has been 3 weeks now and I finally feel good about myself again.
Cell phone records will indicate that I did indeed receive a text message from an argumentative teenager. However, I do have to admit that she did have fantastic timing, as I too found myself wondering how the next scene could possibly be anymore shocking than the last. Perhaps divine intervention kept me from falling into the same trap!
Your courage & strength to break the stranglehold of bad tv is to be admired. If only more of America would follow your lead…
I’ll fess up. I’ve seen more than a couple of episodes of “America’s Next Top Model” – and I HATE reality shows (and have an incredible loathing of Tyra Banks). I’ll sometimes get sucked in if it’s on, though. You made me feel braver.
Isn’t that a “Shannon Show”?
I swear I heard her talking about a show once that shocked me that she(anbyody) would watch and I thought that might have been it. Or maybe it was a show about fashion designers.
Although she is into Twilight and I watched that movie for the first time this weekend.
I was expecting it to be bad, but it blew me out of the water with how wretched it is. I can’t believe that anybody watched this and felt anything but emptiness inside.
There isn’t a single redeeming thing about it.
But if you haven’t seen it, there is one scene that is so laughably bad that it deserves to go down in the annals of one of the worst scenes in movie history.
All I’ll say about it is: Vampires playing baseball!
Either way, America’s Next Top Model is fairly wretched, but everybody has their guilty pleasures.
I know a very talented musician that watches American Idol and I am embarrassed for them.