The Clearing

Watch Rescue Me on FX: The show, which is about the lives of a NY based firefighting unit, is now into its second season and still continues to stay interesting. The major selling point of the show is its irreverent and irresponsible attitude--alcoholism, drug-use, womanizing, resorting to violence/stonewalling instead of communication (which is so deliciously contrary to the typical pop-psychological answer to resolving conflict, improving relationships, etc.), sleeping with your nephew's irresistible schoolteacher to get her to stop `seeing' the nephew (what a deal!), is all very explicit stuff that one expects to see in films, but not on TV (excluding HBO). There is a purity of purpose to the show--the makers of the show are very clear that the goal of the show is to provide thrills, entertain, and their choice of plotlines and the behavioral traits they choose to highlight in their characters reflects that aim--it is not to delve on the stuff of human existence, which might be very realistic, but has low entertainment value. So Rescue Me, in my opinion, is a show that manages to realize this philosophy better than most other shows. The bottomline is that, whatever I might imagine my reasons for watching the show are, I really do enjoy watching it, I hope I have been able to convey that here.

Labels: Reviews