IT was Kristin. She shot JR. I refer of course to JR Ewing, the anti-hero's anti-hero. Back in 1980, the dastardly and duplicitous oil baron played by Larry Hagman in hit US TV series Dallas, was definitely heading for a "pure doing" with any number of potential people prepared to pull the trigger. But it was Kristin Shepard – sister of JR's wife Sue Ellen – who was guilty of the onscreen crime of the 20th century. I suppose having an affair with your wife's younger, more attractive and more sober sister before chucking her might make her a wee bit cheesed off ...
The actual killing had been witnessed during the cliff-hanging finale of season three of the series. A record-breaking 21.5 million pairs of eyes witnessed the shooting in March 1980 but they'd had to wait until November, four episodes in to season four, to see the attempted murderer unmasked. The nation was gripped in a febrile frenzy of intrigue. T-shirts were printed emblazoned with “I Shot JR” and during that year's US presidential campaign, Republicans wore badges claiming: “A Democrat shot JR.” Bookmakers William Hill stopped taking bets on the identity of the trigger-puller.
Back then, such TV events were shared national experiences. Playgrounds, office corridors, shipyard canteens buzzed with opinion and conjecture.
In today's more fragmented televisual world of box sets and online viewing, a plethora of films and programmes are instantly accessible. Many moan that what was once a family phenomenon of communal viewing, huddled around the hearth, is fast becoming a self-determined, solo activity. But fear not; there is still something of the sense of shared experience, albeit tweaked by technology and manipulated by modernity. While we may not all watch television together at pre-scheduled times, there is no shortage of "appointment television" to be viewed in our own time.
US crime drama Breaking Bad – one of the finest TV dramas of all time – was a case in point. Here in the UK it was only available on Netflix or box sets, but at social gatherings, one had to check see where different folk were in the sprawling five-season behemoth before blurting out an amazing moment from an episode they were just about to watch. (There was invariably one person who had no idea who Walter White was or what Breaking Bad was about. How we judged them ...)
When House Of Cards, season five, became available on Netflix last week, I, like many others, have been awaiting its return, obsessively checking emails and websites for a date.
Staring Robin Wright and Kevin Spacey, this US political drama is based on Michael Dobbs's 1980s BBC series, but the world of Washington makes Westminster seem tame by comparison. There’s murder, blackmail, terrorism: pretty much everything.
Spacey plays Francis Underwood, a politician darkly determined to dominate the Democratic Party and propel himself to the Presidency. Wright, effortless as Mrs Underwood, is a re-imagined Lady Macbeth for the feminist age. Shakespeare would have been envious; Machiavelli would have been proud.
The series creators couldn’t have imagined that in the four years since it first broadcast, the events of the fictitious America they depicted could be eclipsed by the events of the (post-) factual America that we find ourselves enduring.
I can’t help wondering if there isn’t a link between the fractured way we live and the greater divisions within our societies. Extrapolate the notion of the Netflix/box-set generation and you can see the same is happening to the way we receive our news, politics and facts. There was once a time when you watched the news and it shaped your opinion; now you can find someone, somewhere online who validates the opinion you already have. Thanks to the internet, you can always find a version of the “truth” that fits with your world view.
Never have we needed more independent journalism. But it’s thin on the ground, and becoming thinner.
The most powerful man in the world is said to binge-watch Fox News, a channel that panders to his childish ego, validating his opinions. Often he will tweet verbatim headlines from bulletins, no matter how partisan and/or ill-informed. And we have seen it in the UK. During Brexit, Leavers’ oft-repeated mantra was how sick they were of being governed by laws from Brussels. Yet, when pushed, almost none could name a European-generated law that impacted their lives negatively.
As we become increasingly dislocated from each other, as we enjoy fewer zeitgeist-defining moments, I worry that we slide deeper into our silos of self-explanation and further away from the open fields of debate and discourse.
Maybe I’m getting old but I think that when we all watched TV together we somehow felt that we were more together as a society. All of us; except that Kristin.
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