So much to see, but do I really want to watch it?
LIKE most people I feel this sense of peace that I am a subscriber to Netflix. It reassures me that I am connected to the modern world, that I am not missing anything.
Yet it can also give me this strange sensation that I am connected to a more ancient world, a world almost beyond time itself — a world in which there used to be things called “video rental stores”, with names like Xtra-vision outside them.
Let me explain: sometimes I’d be scrolling through the fare on offer at Netflix and I’d be thinking what a grand selection of stuff they’ve got here — that series The Crown, which I watched, and the classic movies, most of which I’ve seen already, and Get Me Roger Stone. That was good.
Then there’s the latest releases. Yeah, I must get to them some time.
And yet I would find that even with this grand selection, I might end up watching nothing.
Which is what brings me back to the olden days, when I would find myself wandering through one of those Xtra-vision stores, marvelling at the variety of entertainment on display, grateful to be living in a time in which such riches were mine to rent for the evening, cherishing that little red membership card as a kind of an essential possession — a bit like the Netflix subscription really.
But there was also this uneasy feeling I used to get in Xtra-vision as I was perusing the fare — that I might well end up watching nothing, that it was something of a miracle indeed that Man in his ingenuity had created this industry which could go to such trouble to make so many things that I didn’t really want to see.
And I had forgotten that feeling, until Netflix came along, to bring it all back.