TV, I love you, but you're bringing me down...

I love TV. I love having a ridiculously full slate of shows each night and giddily waiting for the fun to begin. Even the summer, once bastion of reruns and god-awful reality shows, has slowly been filled with delightful scripted programming.

However...

The writers' strike put a definite crimp in the fall schedule, leading a paltry, pathetic, pittance of new programming (and appears to be inversely correlated to the alarming amount of alliteration in the world). Anyway, that started the season off on the wrong foot, forcing me to rely more heavily on my tried and true returning shows. At first this seemed like a viable plan, but the current state of affairs regarding a few of my regulars is leading to some conflicted melancholy... I'll begin with one of the primary offenders:

Dear Grey's Anatomy,

Our affair began as so many do--love at first sight (well, almost). When I first heard about you, I was hardly intrigued at all. But the first couple of times I truly laid eyes on you, after a fairly insignificant tryst with The Practice, I believe, I was completely enamored.

Could it be? Could a mid-season replacement with a hackneyed premise really have swept me off my feet so effortlessly? It's true. It's all true. The first season was a diabolically guilty pleasure that filled a void in my viewing schedu--I, uh, mean heart... The second season was likewise engaging, catapulting the show into my top tier.

And then the third season came lumbering along... As with any affair, things get old after a while, and that I could deal with! But this... The pain, the agony, the Gizzie of it all! Make it stop! The fourth season tried to recapture what we had lost, but the love was all but gone. I remained loyal merely out of habit, not of true infatuation.

And so my loyalty limped into the current season. An improvement over last, and a VAAAAAAST improvement over the woefully eye-gouging season 3, but I think the magic is lost. I'm starting to feel like I'm stuck in an abusive relationship. I'm loyal and loving and I just keep getting mentally and emotionally smacked around. Meredith's whining is unbearable, George's brooding is completely out of character and unbecoming, Alex's rage is overdone, and Izzie's, well, presence, is nigh suicide-inducing.

As it turns out, Christina is the only reason I stick around anymore. She was one of many reasons I began watching you in the first place and now she's the only reason I hang on. And now I'm just not sure it's enough... There are other characters I like, but now it appears that the powers that be are hell-bent on taking them from me. Dr. Erica Hahn's last episode will be Thursday. And, while not my favorite character in the whole wide world, she was really the only character who struck me as someone who could be a real doctor. She wasn't all bunnies and cookies and she didn't constantly bitch and moan about her relationships (I'm looking at you, Meredith... Oh, hell, I'm looking at you ENTIRE REST OF THE CAST) and that's what made her great. Thanks a lot, Grey's. Way to kill off our relationship even quicker.

Anyway, abrupt and unanticipated departures aside, the show has gotten so much better... but I think it's beyond saving. Our relationship is dwindling and I haven't the strength to carry on. In the spirit of honesty, I have to say that I've even cheated on you a few times. And with a much older show... CSI just swooped in while you were letting me down. What can I say? I appreciate a show that kills off characters that totally deserve it, and you don't. Although if it came down to Warrick or Izzie, I'd rather Warrick had lived, taken over CSI, and brooding, tortured, bad boy-ed all day every day.

Long story short? I think we're over. Maybe if Izzie gets mauled by a bear while falling down an elevator shaft onto a pile of jagged rocks that were previously exposed to uranium leading to her horrible, terrible, fabulous death, then we could talk... (Come on, you'd be giving us a second chance AND doing the world a tremendous favor... Promise you'll think about it... I've included some pictures to help you visualize. It would be so easy. All the cool kids are doing it...)

Until then, my affections have waned, and your storylines just don't matter to me anymore... I can't believe I've wasted the best years on my life with you!

So long...

Sucka...

Yours conflictedly,

Me

P.S. Don't feel too bad. You just wait till I "dear John" Heroes. There will be blood. Tootles!

[And in case the title of this post sounds vaguely familiar, well, you're probably a Gossip Girl fan. Now there's a love that never lets me down.]