‘My name is Wendy and I’ve never watched Game Of Thrones!’
Missed the latest TV hit? Don’t worry, it’s time to think outside the box set, says Wendy Holden
My friend stared at me in disbelief. ‘You’re joking,’ she said. I shook my head. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she gasped. I groaned inwardly. I’d been looking forward to this catch-up in the wine bar, but now it was ruined.
What had I done that so shocked her? Voted for Brexit? Joined the swinging fraternity? ‘Seriously?’ My friend took a large gulp of wine to steady her nerves. ‘You’ve never seen Game Of Thrones?’
The conversation didn’t get back on track after that, and I went home feeling that I’d failed in some way. Not for the first time, either. If, like me, you routinely miss the TV series that people bang on about – and fail to amend this by buying the box set and bingeing on it – you can feel like a social pariah.
Forget watercooler chats if you’ve missed The West Wing. Or dinner-party banter if you’re a Victoria-free zone. If you’re not ensconced in the latest must-watch programme, you might as well start talking to yourself.
When taken to task the other day for not seeing Tom Hiddleston in The Night Bum, sorry, Manager, it was all I could do not to stand on my chair and shout: ‘My name is Wendy and I’ve never watched The Night Manager.’
Even worse than making them bossy, box sets make people boring. When
I’m talking to someone in the throes of an addiction to a series I haven’t seen, I feel like a teetotaller in the company of a drunk. Blah blah… Dominic West… blah blah… Ben Whishaw. Make it stop!
The strange thing is, we’ve never had more choice – and we love choice. From mobilephone packages to our holidays, we routinely choose from a wide range of options. And yet, give someone a TV with a thousand different channels and they’ll happily watch the same thing as everybody else – before trotting off to buy the box set, too. Where are people storing all these box sets? In their basements? Is this what people dig out those Notting Hill bunkers for? To stockpile Downton Abbey?
It’s my indifference that seems to rile the box-set bores the most. It’s as if the mere fact that everyone else has put the hours in with this stuff means they must validate their choice by insisting I do the same. Anything else is deemed antisocial, subversive even. So I missed
Mad Men? Deal with it. Why can’t
I be bored by Borgen? The Wire didn’t sound like my thing. I’ve managed to function as a human being all the same.
So, to the box-set bores, I say this: it’s time to watch and let watch. And to my fellow box-set refuseniks, it’s time to unite in defiance. So you missed
The Missing? Who cares? Now the weather is getting better, who wants to be inside watching box sets anyway? If you need me, I’ll be in the garden listening to The Archers.
• Wendy’s latest novel is Laura Lake And The Hipster Weddings (Head of Zeus, £14.99 hardback; £2.99 ebook). Her book Honeymoon Suite (Headline, £8.99) is also out now
‘If you routinely miss the latest TV shows, you can feel like a social pariah’