It's A Crisis, Part II

Back to my midlife crisis. I must quote my favorite TV critic, Heather Havrilesky of Salon:

Once we were young and fearless, but now we're afraid. Talk of world travel calls to mind rickety, overcrowded buses speeding across some muddy road in Thailand. The word "adventurous" triggers images of bungee-jumping accidents and hepatitis B. The sight of old people informs us of how alone we'll be in the end, no matter how many friends we have on speed-dial now. The Internets remind us daily of how elevators plummet and brides get left at the altar and teenagers stockpile weapons and killer bacteria lurk on every surface.

This is why we love "House," a weekly snuff film for neurotics and hypochondriacs, and cling to "The Sopranos," a dark morality tale for guilt-plagued competitive consumers, wandering like ghosts through their crappy jobs just to keep their high-end appliances and service-economy lifestyles intact. "The Bachelor" is just an extended exercise in heart-splitting rejection for insecure wannabe Cinderellas who fear that the champagne-rose-fantasy-suite fairy tale will always evaporate into a few beers, a rented movie and a suspiciously stained futon. And "CSI" offers an endless loop of random, unfair victimization of ladies with bad habits for women who feel powerless in their marriages, and the men who love them that way.