An Irishman's Diary

IT APPEARS I owe an abject apology to the many among you who are fans of the US TV show, The Wire. When I wrote about it here last week, just before the end of its epic BBC 2 run, I wrongly assumed myself to be the last person in Ireland not to have seen the series in its entirety; and therefore believed there was no risk of betraying previously unpublicised details of the plot. Thanks to your many e-mails, texts, and thinly-veiled death threats, I now know otherwise.

It turns out that the vague sense of dilatory uniqueness I felt until last week arose from the fact that I was the only person still watching the series on television: apart, that is, from one other man who, rather than stay up to 2am on Thursday night as I did, had recorded the extended final episode to enjoy at the weekend. So by describing how somebody else had ruined the final night for me, I ruined it for him too.

The rest of you, it seems, are watching the series at your own leisure on DVD boxsets. This, as I have learned, is the way every self-respecting person now consumes TV drama: because after all, who has time to watch it in the old way, at the whims of the schedulers? Even worse, an alarmingly high number of you lead such busy lives that you have still reached only mid-way through season two: which is before any of the major plot twists I mentioned.

I feel even more embarrassed about this for knowing that all your boxsets were purchased first-hand from authorised dealers: not borrowed, stolen, downloaded illegally, or bought for a fiver in an alleyway off Henry Street. If it were otherwise, that air of wounded self-righteousness some of you adopted in the face of my crassness would surely be out of place.

At least most fans of The Wirewere able to minimise the damage by not reading past my first indiscretion. Unfortunately this was a luxury not available to my sub-editor, nor to anyone else in The Irish Timeswho was required to read the column for professional purposes.

Indeed, one of the more worrying e-mails came from a colleague who had seen the whole series, but added: “The large number of people here on the fourth floor who have yet to finish the show prevents those of us who have from freely discussing what happens to which characters, a frustrating state of affairs that you bravely tackled head on!”

I initially mistook the last part of that sentence for a compliment. But on closer reading, its euphemistic qualities became more apparent. I suspect I should avoid the fourth floor for a while.

Chastened as I am, however, it strikes me that my colleague – perhaps inadvertently – makes a good point there. Namely that advances in technology are destroying the art of television watching. Or at least that the rise in DVD boxset ownership, combined with Sky Plus and other forms of transmission delay, are preventing us from experiencing TV in the way we used to: ie communally.

So okay, I may have ruined the last three seasons of The Wirefor such people as the man who told me he was looking forward to watching the boxset on sick leave later in the winter, perhaps when he caught swine flu. But what about those of us who experience television drama in the traditional way, and feel the need to talk about it in the office next morning? Have we no rights?

Until recently, TV was a community event. Whether it was the shooting of JR Ewing or Miley Byrne’s infidelity, it used to be the convention that once something was broadcast, you were free to discuss it. It was half the enjoyment of the thing.

Sometimes it could be therapeutic too. How else would Glenroe fans have coped with the trauma of Biddy’s car crash, for example? Now, we can’t talk ourselves through the grief of such an event for fear of annoying the colleague whose schedule is so pressurised that he or she has had to record the programme and won’t be able to watch it until October, and the mid-term school-break.

Never mind Bowling Alone. Sociologists will soon be talking about the detrimental effect of people watching TV programmes alone, at different times, and thus never being able to discuss them with others.

And will it end with TV drama? No it won’t. Sport will go the same way, if it hasn’t gone there already.

Mark my words – Possible World Cup Finals 2010 Spoiler Warning! – the Republic of Ireland soccer team will qualify for South Africa next year, drawing England in the group stages. In a must-win game for both sides, Damien Duff will sensationally score a 93rd-minute winner, after dribbling past six English players en route: thereby sending the Irish through to the knock-out stages and condemning the pre-tournament favourites to an early flight home and an orgy of tabloid headlines such as “Capello Caput!”.

The next day you will still be buzzing from the excitement of it all and needing to share this. But suddenly a colleague will arrive for work, silencing the office with a wave of his hand and warning: “Don’t say anything about the football! I’m recording the whole tournament, so I can watch it on holiday next month!”

And sure enough, that will be the end of the conversation, there and then.