photo credit: Abigail Kuilan
I have exactly 30 minutes until I have to leave for my soccer practice. That should be plenty of time to finish one episode of my favorite show, “The Summer I Turned Pretty”.
So, I quickly grab a bag of chips from the pantry and hurry down the stairs to the basement. I curl up under the blankets and turn the TV on. The show starts, and I look at the time.
6:03.
27 minutes until I have to leave. Plenty of time to watch one episode…
Time passes, and the show is just starting to get good. I realize I haven’t looked at the time in a while, so I glance up at the big clock hanging above the TV.
6:42.
NO! I’m going to be late for practice! As I turn off the TV to leave, I see that I still had 20 minutes left in my episode! How is that possible?!
I jump in the car and start speeding through my neighborhood to try to make it to practice on time. As I’m driving, I start thinking about why TV episodes are SO LONG.
Who would ever have time to watch that long of a TV episode? If I wanted to sit and watch TV for that long, I would just turn on a movie. Not only that, but I get bored of watching TV for that long, especially if it is a series. Now, I have to turn off the TV when I am in the middle of my episode.
I show up to practice at 7:08. eight minutes late.
When I walk up, my coach asks me why I was late. I couldn’t tell him that I was watching TV, so I just shrugged. He hates when we are late, so I have to run four laps around the track before I can start practicing with the team.
I make it through practice, distracted. All I could think about was if Conrad found Belly in “The Summer I Turned Pretty”. I would have been able to know if the episode was shorter.
As I am driving home, all I can think about is the show. There is still so much I don’t know. It is definitely going to be a long series.
As soon as I get home, I change out of my soccer uniform and immediately run down to the basement.
Again, I curl up under the blanket and turn the TV on. I have to rewind about five minutes because I don’t remember where I left off. Eventually, I unpause it and remember what is happening.
Toward the end of the episode, it really starts to get interesting. I have about five minutes left, and I can’t wait to start the next episode.
The credits start rolling, and I pick up the remote to click on the next episode, but instead I see the suggestions for “more shows like this.”
I don’t believe it! There is no way the show just ended! It was only eight episodes long, and left me on such a cliff hanger!
I walk upstairs to get a snack. As I am eating it, I think about how when I get older, I am going to be a TV show producer. I will make the episodes 20 minutes long, with at least four seasons of episodes because THAT is how it should be.
