Disconnected Enough to be Better

I'm watching Season 1 of The Love Boat.[1]

I was convinced as a child that ocean cruises were populated by funny, attractive people who's only embarrassments served as object lessons or to prop up the benign humor of friends[2]. I believed you could fall in love over a weekend, that the ports were always friendly, the crew members infinitely patient, and the captain discerning and paternal and stern, and occasionally vulnerable.[3]

I watched every minute of every episode, up to and through the closing credits and circling aerial view that picked up skipping highlights across wave crests around the Pacific Princess. I savored every last note, every glint, knowing it would be another week before these friendly people would visit me again.[4]

I cherished those characters. They were as real to me as any living person, and I'm grateful that at one time some few writers and actors and directors got together to create this airy little confection.

Though I know Gopher well, I'll never meet Fred Grandy, and if I did, he wouldn't be Yeoman Purser Burl Smith. He'd be former Congressman Fred Grandy from Iowa. Even so, I'd like to think I could have a drink with him and tell him how much I identified with the personality he created.

And Julie and Doc and Isaac and Captain Stubing.

Naïve? Sure, so what. The tune in/turn on/drop out generation was leaving me behind and in its wake followed a construct just enough connected to reality to possibly be true, but disconnected enough to be better.

[1]
In my opinion, one of the the best segments of the entire series is "Oh, Dale," Season 1 Episode 3, starring John Ritter.

 

 

[2]
That is a very good sentence.

[3]
Original: "and the captain discerning, fatherly and stern, but deep down a marshmallow." No meter. "Fatherly" gets stuck in you mouth, and if you add "marshmallow," the sluggishness is reinforced; "paternal" and the removal of a comma also picks up the sounds in "discerning."

[4]
You can't do that anymore (savor every last musical moment of a TV show's closing credits); they just don't compose closing themes anymore, and if they play reruns that do have closing themes, they scrunch and mute them for programming announcements. I want to bang my head on the coffee table sometimes and plead, "Just let me have this moment to say good-bye."

What's missing is not so much a respect for my time, but a respect for the relationship I've built with the characters. Artists (and those that package them) have to respect their audience, and that includes the last word, the last note, the last brush stroke, or the last credit.

Started: 2012-03-08