Ruined by The Wire

I just can't enjoy t.v. anymore. I mean, I can watch re-runs of Quantum Leap or the odd British police procedural with something approaching enjoyment, but generally I find t.v. a barren wasteland of tedious simplistic drivel.
This wasn't always the case. I used to be able to sit through nearly any old shit. Nearly. I mean, I made it through Naked Jungle and the sight of Chegwin's junk without any irreversible trauma, but I drew the line at Hollyoaks. You have to maintain some standards.
But this was all in the before time. It may say 2009 on my Fluffy Puppy Calender, but in my heart it is the year 7 ATW. 7 years After The Wire came into being.
Yeah, yeah. The Wire's meant to be the Greatest TV Show Of All Time. You've been told over and over again. That's not really what this post is about. Well, maybe a little bit. Mostly, it's about the fact that I am finding it almost impossible to enjoy any of the other critically lauded American t.v. shows that the box is heaving with these days.

I abandoned Lost after 5 episodes when it became clear that the entire premise of the show was, well, bollocks. Plus I had a sneaking suspicion, one that according to My Life Partner apears to have been borne out as the programme has progressed, that the writers were making up the plot as they went along. Heroes appears to be suffering from the same affliction. Over-written and over-staffed and apparantly hell-bent on undermining it's own story with every new plot-twist, I managed to stick with it, under some duress, until early series 3. There's only so many identikit blonde super-heroes my brain can deal with before it shuts down from the tedium. Fringe is a dull X-Files rip-off. 24 a parody of itself and the people that draw inspiration from it. Mad Men is so slow-moving I appeared to black-out for an hour whenever it was on. Also, does Mad Men have anything like a plot? I'd appreciate knowing what it is, having struggled through the entire first series and some of the 2nd before conceding that I just don't get this show's appeal.

I like Sci-Fi and that, so you might suppose that I'd be all over Battlestar Galactica like a red-clad Amazonian Cylon hotty on a sweaty little english fella. Nope. Despite assurances from a range of people that BG is an intelligent multi-layered drama dealing with religion and politics and yadda yadda yadda, I was digging my nails into my palms out of irritation by episode 2. Two-thirds of the way into series one I yanked the dvd player from the wall and chucked it into the street. Anything to ensure I never have to hear the word 'frack' or witness a red-clad Amazonian Cylon hotty licking the face of a sweaty little english fella ever again.
My main problem with BG though is, well, it's not The Wire. It's well reported that The Wire is hard work. You have to make some effort to break through the seemingly impenetrable accents and colloquiallisms to get at the sweet and juicy stories beneath. You're expected to figure stuff out for yourself. And for fucks sake, pay attention because back-story and pertinent information is not going to be repeated over and over in every other scene. In BG, you get to sit through a recap every episode, followed by 25 minutes of making sure you get that the 2 folks named Adama are related. I'm sure that if I'd watched BG in the Before Time I'd have accepted it for the awesome show that everyone else seems to think it is. But I've been ruined by The Wire, T.v. is wasted on me now.