In earlier posts I defined the “premise” as a proposition that must be proved or demonstrated; furthermore, such propositions are often of a profound nature with social significance (e.g. “poverty breeds crime”).  That is the way that the premise has been used in plays and films, although I pointed out that premises in those two mediums are somewhat rare today.  However, in American television, not only is the premise not rare, the word has taken on an entirely different meaning.  The meaning in this instance is almost synonymous with a “gimmick”: something that distinguishes one television show from another; and often such premises are quite outlandish.  Thus we have had shows about genial genies, flying nuns, talking horses and favorite Martians.  My personal all-time favorite for silliness is “My Mother the Car”, in which a car is the reincarnation of the main character’s deceased mother.  As the premises of these shows cannot really be proved because they are fantasies, the audience must suspend disbelief in order to enjoy them.

However, for “serious” series shown predominately on cable television, there are some more subtle—and also insidious—premises that viewers must also accept beforehand; and they fall into two broad categories.  The first, for shows dealing primarily with criminals or persons engaging in criminal behavior, is that” bad people can do bad things—e.g. brutality and murder—and be not so bad people.”  The second is that “good people—e.g. non-criminals—can do bad things—e.g. infidelity and substance abuse—and still be good people”.  Weighty premises such as these in plays and films we would expect to be conclusively proved or demonstrated by the end of the production.  But because these series often go on for years, it is not reasonable to expect their viewers to wait that long to see if the premises of these shows prove to be true.  Thus, the audience must “buy in” to them from the beginning.  I must say that for the shows of the first type—and I have seen many—the criminals, despite their professed devotion to their families, appear to me to be little more than brutal thugs.  And as for the second type, the ones dealing with so-called good people, in the end the main characters strike me as totally self-absorbed, caring little about the people they hurt as the a result of  their selfish pursuits.  So why do I watch such shows if I fail to “buy-in” to their premises?  That is a good question.

Well, for one thing, I like to keep up on what is going on in the arts and entertainment.  And you have to admit that many of these shows are well produced with top-notch talent.  Or perhaps I simply find them to be a guilty pleasure.  Then again maybe the real reason I watch them is because they make me nostalgic for a simpler time, when cads were cads and criminals were criminals; and it was not politically incorrect not to like them.