Brian Perry: Blog

It’s that time of year again for all of us TV fans. The time of cliff-hangers, heart breaks, loves made, fond farewells and sometimes gritting our teeth and growling at networks for cutting the shows we love. I’m not ashamed to admit it: the characters on these shows are real people in my world. What would the world be without Hawkeye, Jed Bartlett, or Ross & Rachel for that matter? Anyway, I digress in the midst of my digression.

I got to thinkin’ this week about 2 shows in particular and why I watch them. I mean really why – what do I get out of it? What’s the payoff? The first is called “Flashforward” and has sadly been cancelled without a proper finale. The basic premise was that the whole world “blacked-out” and while out glimpsed their future or, more specifically, their personal point of view of the very same moment in the future some six months ahead.

Some saw nothing at all – causing them to believe they would be dead by then. And then there were of course – literally – billions of different other futures of various shapes and sizes. Without spoiling it for you, a piece of what now turns out to be the (prematurely) final episode involves the arrival of this moment that everyone saw six months ago. In other words, they’re catching up with the future.

So every week as I sat down to Hulu to watch “Flash Forward” the thought itched in the back of my mind, “What do I find so compelling about this?” I mean, yes, it obviously raises interesting questions about fate and destiny that anyone who’s ever had a broken heart, struggled to pay a bill, or just – ya’ know – gets out of bed in the morning must think about every now and then. But there’s something else.

Then one of the characters brought into relief a really powerful thing. He was talking about this moment of catching up to the future. He was saying how he wanted to be out and about to witness it. He was saying that he wanted to see what people would do when their lives became about NOW again and not about the FUTURE. Ahhh, I thought, there it is.

And like a gentle, deep breath, “Flash Forward” gave me one last parting gift – NOW. Life is about now and not some moment I’m moving toward with whatever degree of certainty or of fear. Life is about what I do when given the chance to bear witness to now and now and now and now.           

Nice.

Then there’s a show I’ve loved for a few seasons now called “In Plain Sight” about the witness protection program (WITSEC) which hides people who are in danger for a variety of reasons. It gives these people new lives and a hides them in plain sight (get it? cute right?). Actually, there are some really powerful moments to be found here.

On a recent episode (this show’s just in mid-season), a witness decides to leave the program. One of the Marshals protests, reminding her that he’s found her a new job, new identity, new house – she thanks him and says, “But I want to be what I was born to be, WHO I was born to be.” This may cost her her life. To be clear: living her “true” life may cost her her life.

This and what follows below and a thousand tiny and earthshaking changes in my world in the last few years all flipped a switch in my brain.

The switch maybe was to a light and the light maybe is one that shines on me and shows me to be hiding out in witness protection a lot of the time willing to fade away pretending to be someone else rather than risk the mortal peril and possibilities of being who I was born to be. Then there’s the time I think I spend wrapped up in the idea of being liberated by some cosmic WITSEC program that can sweep in and give me a fresh start, a fresh chance to step into the me I most want to be.

But, as useful a tool as recognizing the shift in perspective that this switch in my head offers, I think my truth in this matter may lie closer to the wrap-up narration to this episode:

“We love what we love. For some people it’s a first grade crush, for others it’s a big wheel, the wrong guy or the New York Mets. For some of us it’s something unreachable, something maybe we’ve never had before and we know that even if we reach it, even if we pull it close and make it ours, it won’t last. It can’t. But we keep on because it doesn’t matter if it’s a big wheel, the wrong guy or the New York Mets it doesn’t matter what we reach for, what matters is the reaching.” – from In Plain Sight

I’ll only add this: Be who you are. Yes, it may kill you – that’s what life does no matter how you live it. Be who you are. Reach.