You think there's not a lot going on?
Look closer, baby, you're so wrong.
When you read those two lines, what do you think of?
Yep, you guessed it, the theme song to the TV show that will perhaps go down as the most iconic in all of Canadian television, Corner Gas.
It's hard to believe that show started on the air 17 years ago back in 2004. Yikes, I was still in high school when the first season premiered in January of that year. Talk about "classic TV", huh?
Corner Gas would make its debut and proceed to run for the next five years, racking up award wins and gaining massive popularity across the country. Even our neighbours to the South started getting wind of the show, so it started seaping down into the American airwaves. To date, Corner Gas has amassed a six-season run on TV, a feature-length film of which the production budget was paid for by rabid fans of the show via crowdfunding, and for the last few years, it's even been brought back to life in cartoon form, with Corner Gas Animated currently in its fourth (and final) season.
I bring up this show because Corner Gas, along with a host of other programs, have served as 'comfort television' for me recently. You know the routine: you're browsing the streaming services, not really sure what you want to watch, still undecided as to whether it's a specific movie that'll catch your eye or if you're looking for a certain TV show, and then you come across it - that certain show of which you've seen every episode, but you inevitably decide to say, 'Eh, I may as well start from the beginning' and you hit play on Season One, Episode One.
The rest, as it plays out, is history.
Right now, what I'm binge-watching is Modern Family. You've likely heard of it but the gist is this: the trials and tribulations of three separate households who all come together to make one big, you guessed it, 'modern family'. Yeah yeah, I've seen the show a thousand times and I can almost hear the jokes and reactions from the main characters from a mile away, but it's a great show and it has that "rewatchability" factor; that little something that means you can always go back to it. I was a weekly viewer of the show and I was there when it left the airwaves in April of last year after 11 seasons. Now, I'm giving it the old rewatch on Netflix and currently, I just started season four.
Comfort TV really is a thing, isn't it? You have to know what I'm talking about here, I really don't believe I'm throwing out a weird and bizarre thing when I mention it. It's just something that I think we've all experienced in one way or another. You watch a show that gives you comfort and you just end up sticking with it.
But in another way, I think that the comfort of watching a show you're all too familiar with does its own little part to soothe aching souls.
I say this because I'm still very much in mourning after the passing of my loving mother, Lynda. It's closing in on four months since she's been gone, but man, it may as well be four days as far as I'm concerned. The pain is still very much there and I'm thinking about Mom so often during every single day. She now joins Dad and sits right beside him as people who are in my daily thoughts. I think that's the thing about losing a parent: they're on your mind so often because it just feels incredulous that the world is losing this force-of-nature-type human being, the person who was responsible for bringing you into this world and shaping it, giving you your first perspective of this amazing thing called life. For that person to no longer be there just seems ridiculous to me.
So, to help cope with the loss, one of the ways I'm using to help live my everyday life and give it some sense of enjoyment again is I find myself escaping to the land of sitcoms. Not totally escape, of course, but just when the day is done and I'm bored, that's typically my go-to move. I know our parents always said when we were kids that too much TV would rot our brains, but I can assure you that is not the case. I get enjoyment out of watching the goings-on of the clan on Modern Family, like when the families all go to Hawaii to celebrate Jay's birthday, or when the families are all trying to get together to take a portrait, or when Phil tries to sell the old family station wagon and memories start coming up, or when everyone is rushing to gather for Alex's high school graduation, or when everyone goes on a trip to Australia, or when the show finally unites two of its leads in marriage.
Whatever the Dunphy family, Pritchett clan, or Tucket-Pritchett gangs did, they had a lot of people following them on their journey. I'm just enjoying taking that journey again with them.
Television is there to entertain you, first and foremost. But I like to think that when you pull off all the jokes and you look underneath, what you're really looking at is a story that will be there for you in your time of need. So whether you're looking to laugh, cry, or be shocked, TV shows like Modern Family are there for you. Luckily, they stand the test of time.
So, yes, when I'm not at work or doing something outdoors, you can probably find me nestled on the couch, remote in hand and putting on something familiar, something I've seen before, and something that will always give me enjoyment.
Sometimes the heart just wants what's familiar.
For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.
