After my daughter goes to bed, my wife and I sit in the living room and watch a grown-up show. We’re usually watching two at a time: a half-hour comedy and an hour-long drama. Most nights, we watch the comedy both before and after the drama (though truth be told, my wife usually doomscrolls throughout the comedy).
Lately, we’ve been in a rut with our comedy choice. We enjoy Superstore, a very network-y sitcom in the tradition of The Office set at a Walmart-style superstore. Unfortunately, Superstore’s network only releases a new episode every once in a while, so it doesn’t serve the needs of our nightly television ritual.
A couple of months ago, when the country was still under Trumpian rule, and after Vermont’s governor declared a ban on multi-household gatherings, and while I was sinking into a temporary depression due to not being able to hug extended family members during the holidays, it began to feel like making my way in the world today was taking everything I had, and the idea of taking a break from all my worries, sure would’ve helped a lot. I just wanted to get away, so I went to a place where I already knew everybody’s names.
My wife and I are now on Season 6 of Cheers. If the next episode of Superstore isn’t available, we hang out for a half-hour with Sam, Carla, Norm, Cliff, and the rest of the gang. For six seasons now, the folks at Cheers have mostly held up their end of our bargain. They don’t make us think too much, they make us laugh, and if we get distracted by a conversation or zone-out while doomscrolling on our phones, we miss absolutely nothing in the series’ longer narrative.
Sure, the show can be problematic. In the first ten episodes of the first season, Dianne Chambers is sexually assaulted about half a dozen times, and after at least one incident, she apologizes for it; after another incident, Sam convinces her it was her fault. So that’s not cool.
Sam, of course, is just generally problematic. His character, a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who had to quit the game due to his alcoholism, is a lecherous man-whore (who is now on the wagon). He cannot look at an attractive female without feeling the compulsion to sexually harass her. In the earlier seasons, when he is not just the bartender but also the owner of Cheers, he targets the majority of his harassment on one of his female employees, the aforementioned Dianne, an academic dilettante who, after five seasons of constant harassment, will eventually agree to marry her abuser before abandoning him at the proverbial altar for a longshot’s chance at literary success.
Homophobia regularly rears its head as well. One episode, originally aired in January 1983, focuses on one of Sam’s former teammates who writes a memoir in which he comes out as gay. Sam’s eventual acceptance of his friend’s sexuality stirs fears among the bar’s regulars that Cheers will transform into a gay bar. Tensions come to a boil when Norm and the others stage a walkout after Sam accepts two gay patrons, rejecting his regular customers’ call to discriminate.
This balance between demonstrating blue-collar ignorance while also exposing it to the audience highlights the quality of the show. While Cheers remains in its value-system a very 1980s television show, it should be congratulated for attempting to stay on the forward-leaning edge of those values.
Another episode plays on the gang’s homophobia while also teaching the audience that fathers who reject their sons for coming out of the closet are making a terrible decision. It does this through the dimwitted bartender, Coach Ernie Pantusso, a paternal friend from Sam’s pitching days who holds a record for getting hit in the head with the most baseballs.
A customer asks for advice after meeting his son’s new boyfriend (and here’s the kicker: the boyfriend is black!), and Coach tells him, “If you’re that unhappy about it, just throw him out and tell him you never want to see him again.”
“I can’t do that,” the customer says, “I love him too much…oh, I see what you’re saying.”
“You do?” Coach asks incredulously.
“If I can’t accept the kid the way he is,” the customer continues, “I’ll lose him.”
“Boy,” Coach says, “that’s good.”
“Well, when you put it that way, what choice do I have? Thanks, Coach!”
Sure, Coach suggested it is acceptable for a father to reject his son for being gay, but the episode recognizes the shallowness of fathers who choose this path.
Outside of the sexual assaults, harassments, and homophobia, all of which are continuously played for laughs and all of which remain highly problematic, the series walks this line between cultural progress and cultural regression. But it does so in a casual and winking way, keeping its political implications light and its characters’ relationships steady. This makes it easier for two highly-stressed teachers and parents to wind themselves down for the night.
Once our minds and our worries have settled, we turn to our current hour-long drama: the German Netflix series, Dark.
If you haven’t watched Dark, you absolutely should. It’s one of those puzzle narratives where you’re constantly wondering how events and characters are related and constantly questioning the nature of what comes first, the cause or the effect. It compares (favorably) to the experience of watching Lost (except Dark’s creators aren’t creating mysteries on a whim).
Dark also has the metaphysical weirdness of Twin Peaks. The difference is that Twin Peaks has an incredible sense of humor about it, while Dark offers very little in the way of laughter. You won’t find odes to coffee or pie in Dark, nor any absurd detectives whose deafness requires them to scream their words at the top of their lungs. But you will recognize the sense of dread that underlies the entire town and the way every character has a secret or three to hide.
As mentioned, the series is German, so we watch every episode with English subtitles. This can be offputting for some people, and if that includes you, my only recommendation is to get over it, because the series is worth it.
The subtitles offer an added benefit: because you have to read the television screen, doomscrolling on your phone means missing some highly important piece of information, forcing you to put your phone down. For those who find themselves unable to watch a show without having a phone in their face, this hour of respite will do wonders for your mental health (it’d be better if you walked in nature for an hour, but it’s better than nothing).
The series centers on the German town of Winden in the aftermath of a child’s disappearance. The town contains a soon-to-be-decommissioned nuclear-power plant and an elaborate cave system, and some suspect that both are somehow involved in the disappearance. A wide variety of narrative puzzles ensue.
Dark begs to be binged, but I recommend taking your time with it, limiting yourself to just one episode per session. The puzzles are so numerous that if you let them wind and unwind by watching three or four episodes at a time, you’ll miss the pleasure of working them over in your mind.
At the end of every episode, I look at my wife say, “Want to watch one more?” and thankfully, she has the discipline to say, “No. I’m enjoying it just one episode at a time.” Because she has that discipline, I’m enjoying it too.
We still have about 10 episodes to go in Dark, but the previous 16 episodes give me faith that the whole series will live up to its promises (and a friend has assured me it will). I’ll be thankful when it does.