Family dramas: Just not my cup of reality

My wife and I just got through the first season of “This Is Us,” the NBC drama that follows the life of the Pearson family, the plot bouncing back and forth from birth to death and everything in between.

It’s well-written and has moments of pathos, humor and surprise. And, like most TV shows (and life itself), its characters sometimes do things that are so impossibly stupid you know it was merely a way for a Hollywood scriptwriter to push the story along.

My wife loves “This Is Us,” and I like it, too, but not nearly as much as she does. It’s not the type of show I would watch if she didn’t. I’m not into family dramas.

Fact is, I watch television for escapism, not for a rehash of real life. I get real life every day; I don’t need more at night. It’s one of the reasons I quit watching “thirtysomething” back in the 1980s. I was thirtysomething back then and didn’t need to see my life splattered all over the TV screen.

For me, it was always dramas such as “St. Elsewhere” (hospital), “Hill Street Blues” (cops), “ER” (hospital), “L.A. Law” (self-explanatory), “Northern Exposure” (goofiness) that caught my attention. I need a little adrenaline rush every now and then, I suppose.

I don’t watch “reality” TV, either. Despite the fact that the shows are about as “real” as a department store mannequin, why do I want to see people yelling at each other or crying at each other or throwing things at each other? I Shawn Ryan couldn’t care less if someone “survives” or “races” or is a “real hausfrau.”

Nor do I find any enjoyment in “The Voice” or “American Idol” or “The X Factor” or any of those youcan-be-a-star-if-the-judgeslet-you programs that have convinced the better part of a generation that to make a living as a musician, you just have to look good and sing good, in that order. It’s depressing and plastic.

To be completely honest, though, I escape into shows that a lot of others probably hate, too. “Legion,” “The Walking Dead,” “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” “The Expanse.” Etc. Etc. Come to think of it, most of the shows I enjoy usually leave me in some pretty horrible places. But it’s not real, and I can simply turn off the tube to be safe again.

Can’t do that with shows like “This Is Us.” Turn off the TV and there you are, right back in the same sorts of messes as the characters on the show. But that’s where I’ll be, I guess, as my wife and I watch Seasons Two and Three of “This Is Us,” a total of 36 more episodes.

Time to get back to real life.