Televisual Schadenfreude: Making Me Feel Glad I'm Not You

The writer's strike - apart from putting me out of not only a job but a visa, so as I sit back in my flat in London, thanks a lot guys, it's not as though I was enjoying the LA weather anyway - has had a troubling effect. Season 2007/8 proved nasty, brutish and short for many of the American series. The wave of sadistic misery and violence that accompanied the season finale period is almost frightening. I mean, season finales always have a dash of that, but the shortened season and general air about the industry has had some decidedly unsunny consequences.

Supernatural stands out. Having spent weeks proclaiming how cool it would be if Dean actually did go to hell, when it came to the being torn apart by hellhounds and the impaling for eternity with meathooks, I began to rethink my position. Funnily enough, I think Dean was rethinking his position too. Jared Padelecki's insistence on crying in the most disagreeable way was the only thing stopping the tears in my ducts. It was horrible. That's the only word for it. Horrible to watch. Both the crying and the meathooks, I mean.

Meanwhile, on House, fuck knows what misery was brought upon the heads of fuck knows who, to the point where our soundman remarked that the dying girl, on the whole, was probably facing the most cheerful future. On Battlestar Galactica they were more rogered than usual, and on Bones they took the interesting decision to ditch the writers altogether and have the finale written by a prepubescent fangirl with the vaguest acquaintance with the art of storytelling. Charlie on Numb3rs decided that selling secrets - or something - to the Pakistanis was a good idea, based (I think) solely on the fact that his big brother didn't think it was a good idea. I once jumped off my shed based on that principle, but I was about seven, and Charlie is not only not seven, but is allegedly a genius. Anyway, so we left the family Eppes contemplating a future with a son in chains for treason. Elsewhere, Smallville, the Living Dead of television, continues it's wholly undeserved course to an 8th season. This one finished with the cast in their thirties and Lex and Clark fighting it out. People, this is now the Newer Adventures of Superman! KILL IT!

Even Pushing Daisies, the most remorseless source of unsolicitied felicity, cleanly broke my heart with poor old Chuck crying over her dead father who wasn't even her father, and the fact the love of her life can't touch her and so help me GOD if they don't find a way for Ned to give Digby a hug soon then I'm breaking down the fucking fourth wall and doing it myself. In fact, only CSI warmed my cockles by taking my long overdue advice and shooting Warrick. Hurrah! It only took eight fucking years!

So having spent weeks tramping around the USA with a crew being fed badly and depressed enormously by my television watching, I have returned home to find that Doctor Who, being both Smallville of British television, trundles on. Monkey had sweetly recorded the eps I had missed. "If you want my advice," he said, "skip to the end."