Don’t tell anyone but I recently completed series 4 of Virgin River. And I binge-watched a show genuinely called Byron Baes in 72 hours.
Yes, I pride myself on being an arbiter of good taste but goddamit, aren’t there times when we all just need to be anaesthetised by a show where people say, “I’m the number one most followed male influencer of Australia”?
If you haven’t heard of either of these shows, mazel tov, you live a meaningful and fulfilling life.
Virgin River is a soap opera dressed up as a drama about a city gal from LA called Mel (we know she’s from the big city because she drives a BMW, has a leather handbag and a side of sass) who rocks up in a small town to become the new community nurse. Guess what, she meets a bestubbled man called Jack and they fall in sexy love and all sorts of silly drama ensues. There are certain sub-plots that are so annoying that I watch them on fast forward and yet, I’ve watched all 40 episodes. 40.
Byron Baes is even more embarrassing. It’s a reality TV show about a bunch of influencers set in Byron Bay (see what they did there?), Australia. Every 6 seconds, one of the cast members tells you that Byron is a “really small town full of creatives”. Some of their creative jobs seem to amount to little more than them wanging on about how spiritual they are all the time.
In each episode, there is a pointless art/music/fashion/mermaid event (because Byron is a really small town full of creatives) and the show’s one plot line about most of the cast hating the new girl from the Gold Coast is re-hashed again and again until you’ve lost all sense of time and space and your soul is dead. Even the very creative influencers themselves seem to be smirking about what nonsense it all is. Reader, I watched it all. This is a cry for help.
A few years ago, I wrote a piece proclaiming that irony was dead. I argued that we aren’t watching crap TV or listening to lame music ironically - we simply have bad taste. Why not stop justifying it and accept that sometimes, you just want to watch something shit? This reasoning is why I give myself permission to enjoy Byron Baes and no longer apologise for my more questionable life choices.
I’ve also realised that when it comes to my taste in entertainment, things have to be very good or really awful for me to enjoy them and that actually, it’s the stuff in the middle, the blah mediocrity masquerading as quality that I have no tolerance for. The no man’s land where four episodes in you think, “Why the hell am I watching this?” Give me an explicitly terrible show over one that lulls me in with the veneer of prestige any day of the week.
What did you watch that was very good or really awful this summer? Please dish.
See you next time!
Hannah
I totally agree with this (and remember that irony piece well!). Last night I started ‘Dubai Hustle’ which may well be worse than both of these!
Sounds incredible