Writitude, Metaphysical TV Edition
Writitude is an occasional list of writing for which I am grateful.
3. Mad Men. Not exactly metaphysical/spiritual, except for the way it melts time and finds a deeper truth. It is said that those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it. This show not only reexamines the past — the post-Eisenhower, beginning-of-the-end years — with the clear lens of the present, it reexamines the present via a bracingly unembellished understanding of the past. If we can take the blinders off about how non-Leave it to Beaver our past was, then perhaps we can heal our present, with all its unchecked baggage.
2. Life on Mars. Another show that transports us back to a previous decade, with a contemporary perspective. But the twist here is that our hero — mysteriously thrown back to 1973 from his “real” home in 2008 — may actually be imagining the whole thing while he lies in a modern-day coma. Or perhaps 2008 was the illusion and he’s awakened to his reality in the time of wide collars. Or maybe it’s all an illusion and reality lies somewhere else altogether. Where else is network television pondering such things?
1. Eli Stone. At the risk of sounding grand, the world is a better place because this show is on the air. While nobody was paying attention, a series was green-lit — and renewed for a second season! — that unabashedly examines the Divine. But not the Falwellian version; rather, the kind that is inexplicable, and juicy, and life-changing, and joyous/daunting. And while the topic is raised zealously, it is laden more with thought-provoking irreverence than stultifying reverence. Who better to have been thunderstruck with visions than a corporate lawyer? And how better to portray our collective struggle to embrace Spirit while maneuvering the Earthbound than to watch a sheepish ersatz-messiah allow himself to be guided through — and perhaps beyond — the bureaucratic and patriarchal legal system.