You know something has gone beyond a trend when it becomes a verb. Yeah, I’m just gonna Netflix it tonight. And the bigger head scratching aspect of this is that we say that like it’s actually an active verb. Hmm,...shall I hike or parasail or Netflix?
Back in the days of “Friends” and “Seinfeld” and just three major networks plus that upstart, Fox, I had my couch potato periods. But there was a tinge of shame in that. I might mention that I watched “The Golden Girls,” but I wouldn’t admit that I kept the TV on as “Empty Nest” followed. “Cheers,” yes. “Wings”? My little secret. (Hey, I had a serious Tim Daly crush. Still do, based on a current pic of the now sixty-four-year-old actor.)
Now people say, “I Netflixed all weekend” and they get a high-five instead of someone gesturing a capital “L” on their forehead. This isn’t some new coronavirus phenomenon. People have been Netflixing away weekends for years.
Am I the only one who finds Netflix can sometimes seem like a whole lot of nothing? It seems I’m between series. Done with “Please Like Me” and “Grace and Frankie” and “Dead to Me.” I’m left hanging with “Schitt’s Creek” since Netflix doesn’t carry the final season. (Wedding? Yes, I’ve heard. Don’t tell me anything more.) A few nights ago, I spent twenty-five minutes scrolling through options.
Meh.
No.
No way.
Nothing. Seems that, with my hiatus from dating sites, I’m channeling my rejection tendencies to “trending” TV fare. (Yes, I put trending in quotes. Who, pray tell, is suddenly swooning over dusty old shows like “The Gilmore Girls” and “How I Met Your Mother”? I clicked off and went back to my book.
Last night, I gave it another try. (Wow, it really is like dating sites. Always begins with optimism. Maybe something new, maybe something I missed...) The main title taking up most of the screen was for a Netflix original movie, “Love, Guaranteed,” about a guy who sues a dating site of the same name. After a thousand dates arising from the app, Romeo is still solo.
Dammit. I could’ve written the screenplay. But then, my version would have been more romantic tragedy than romantic comedy.
I Netflixed.
Nothing to recommend about the flick. Swipe left and finish “The Gilmore Girls,” for god’s sake. The movie is a cutesy piece of confection with a predictable ending carried out in a cringe-inducing courtroom scene. (Objection! The former lawyer in me can’t stomach when Hollywood turns legal proceedings into plot devices, rules of evidence be damned.)
Still, I was hooked right away because the setting is Seattle, a city I love and miss while the Canada-U.S. border remains closed. I was then distracted for the rest of the movie as I realized that my city, Vancouver, subbed in for The Emerald City, as I easily spotted footage of our Chinatown, Gastown and Stanley Park. (Side rant: Why is Vancouver always acting like some other place on film, particularly an American place? Why can’t Vancouver ever be the actual setting of a story? For Americans, must every North American setting be in the United States?)
Back to my rationalizing sitting through “Love, Guaranteed,” I was also content to spend ninety minutes ogling Damon Wayans, Jr., someone I’ve crushed on since “New Girl” and “Happy Endings.” He always comes off as geeky-charming-sexy. (Swipe right!)
I related to “Love, Guaranteed” in the same way I’ve related to “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” (both of which I finally broke up with a few seasons ago). As they say, misery loves company, even if that company is fictional/scripted/fake. There’s comfort in seeing people way better looking than me, sobbing in the back of a limo, wondering if they’ll ever find love. At the start of “Love, Guaranteed,” we learn that Nick Evans (Wayans) has been on 986 first dates through the dating site which, in its fine print, guarantees love at least after 1,000 tries.
A thousand tries…
It did get me thinking. How many first dates have I had from Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, Match.com and, ahem,...Scruff? Nowhere near that many. What a consolation. A hundred? Um,...maybe. But surely not two hundred.
Sad enough.
The good news is that such a been-there-done-that movie did not lead me to my laptop, logging back in to update my profiles and activate them once again, replacing my new habit of Netflix scrolling with my old routine of sighing over the same old “eligible” men with profile pics that I can personally attest to being at least ten years old. Seriously, guys, in a selfie society, how hard is it to download a recent pic and let go of that favorite photo from when you were 28, back in the last century?
Yep, it’s probably a good thing that I stretch that hiatus out a little longer. Maybe I can find something trending on Neflix starring that perennially cranky actor, Dabney Coleman. A 98% match, no doubt.
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