Yawning for the Wrong Reason.

The long dark evenings are proving difficult at the moment. It’s a curious fact about me that I find it impossible to drum up any enthusiasm for practical tasks, apart from the regular chores, after darkness has fallen. And reading is out of the question, partly because I have nothing I want to read, and partly because the effort of deciphering the ink blots on a page is too much for my tired eyes and brain. (I rarely sleep through the night, you see. If anxiety doesn’t wake me, bad dreams do the job instead.) And so I scour the charity shops for DVDs which I think might hold my interest without requiring effort on my part.

This week I found a boxed set of a series entitled Ghost Whisperer starring somebody called Jennifer Love Hewitt. The title was intriguing, and the star of the show held promise because I’d never heard of her. I often find that the best films and TV dramas have little known leading actors because they’re usually more believable. And so I bought it and tonight I watched the pilot episode.

I soon discovered that the title is the only notable quality it possesses. Everything about it is one-dimensional and predictable – the acting, the direction, the lighting, the script, everything. The one feature which keeps the eyes tirelessly rolling in disbelief is the constant drip of mawkish sentimentality. (Authentic sentimentality appeals to me a lot, but the drippy variety is a massive turn-off.) There’s no style, no subtlety, and no substance, and even the supposed creepiness would be unlikely to trouble a ten-year-old with a modicum of intelligence. The DVD case carries the instruction: ‘only suitable for those over the age of fifteen.’ I think that should be changed to ‘only suitable for those under the age of five.’ It was a massive disappointment. In short, pure primetime.

So will I trouble myself to watch the second episode? It all depends on how desperate I am to fill the long lonely hours. I might, but if you never hear more of me…