I watched a lot of “House” during the break. It was very entertaining, but the more I watched it, the more I saw the machinery behind the slick veneer. I started noting that the structure of each episode was virtually the same. The hook at the beginning. The twists right before commercials. The eventual successful resolution through some insane bend of logic. Over time, I realized how shallow it is.

What happened to TV in the United States? There is so little worth watching that I’ve virtually given up on the medium. Overseas, there have been many good TV productions, such as “The Decalogue.”

The only way I could even watch as much “House” as I did was because I could skip the commercials. I just cannot get into a show only to have it interrupted by some curvilinear vixen trying to sell me glass cleaner. It just doesn’t work. Seeing as I could skip the commercials and thus watch the show, I started to search for a deeper meaning­—some sort of redeeming message that would lead me to think on an important topic. I just couldn’t find it. I doubt it was a failure of my exegesis.

Simply put, the show is just mindless entertainment written by some hack. And yet so many people watch it and many other shows that are even more mindless.

There is an element of escapism inherent in engaging with any media. One escapes into the show, the play, the story, the painting or the music. The important thing is that when you come back, you come back like Prometheus: bearing fire. That is to say, that you come back inflamed about an idea. I have seen countless films that have done this for me, but very few TV shows have done so. Most of those TV shows that have were foreign. So if TV shows don’t inspire, then all they provide is the escape.

It’s a fact that during the Great Depression, people went to the movies to forget how bad their lives were. They spent their money on something to help them get away for a while. Just a while, and then they would be back in reality where things sucked. And they would be even poorer for having bought the ticket.

People love pleasure, and to get pleasure, even fleeting pleasure, people will ignore the consequences. This drive gives us millions of people watching mindless entertainment. It also gives us our drunks, adulterers and worse.

However, pleasure is not a bad thing. It simply needs to be channeled into the right paths. Escaping to a fantasy land that has no bearing with reality is not a right path. As for what is a right path, that’s a thorny question that many have written on, and I refer you to these others’ surer words.

To quote the best post-apocalyptic spud rock band around, “Turn off the Idiot Box! It’s a disease just like chicken pox.” All those hours we spend fretting over characters’ lives could be spent fretting over our own. We cannot change the characters’ lives, but we can change our own. So put your time toward good use, and use it on your own life.