I guess you should be grateful when your favorite show’s renewed. But when I heard Showtime OK’d a second season of “The Affair,” I wanted to cry.
Whatever happened to “less is more”? Or, for that matter, to closure?
For weeks now, my husband and I have huddled on the sofa, elbowing one another as the adulterous Noah (a sublime, granite-faced Dominic West) and Alison (a thrillingly bipolar Ruth Wilson) sink deeper and deeper into sin.
Any week now, we promised ourselves, we’d find out which marriage would implode first.
How would their spouses — Maura Tierney’s level-headed Helen and Joshua Jackson’s cuddly Cole — react? And would we ever get another lingering look at the lobster rolls Alison the waitress serves at Lunch? (Save yourself the drive: That famous Montauk eatery is closed for the season.)
We don’t want to wait much longer to find out. The question is: Will we find out by the 10th and final episode, or are they going to spin this out like “The Killing”?
Granted, most TV shows are engineered to run for years and a rare few, like “The Good Wife,” actually improve over time. Sitcoms (good ones) can theoretically run forever: If “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was still running, I’d be watching.
But there should be an expiration date on mystery. Life moves on, and so do we.
It seems ages since hubby and I watched breathlessly as Eph Goodweather — Corey Stoll, in a wig with a life of its own — went up against those lizard-tongued Nazi vampire zombies in FX’s “The Strain.”
Who knew the show was based on a trilogy? (OK, so some of you did.)
Ditto “The Returned,” Sundance Channel’s French import, which left its own zombie-focused plot dangling at the end of its first season. My memory of which characters are alive or dead has receded even faster than my ability to conjugate French verbs.
And while I’ll probably return to this twisty European mystery, I won’t feel the same urgency that tethered me to the tube throughout Season 1.
But what a gift was “Olive Kitteridge”!
Based on Elizabeth Strout’s prize-winning book, the HBO miniseries starred Frances McDormand in a story told in just four luminous hours. And while I’d gladly watch McDormand read my Aetna health statement, that’s all Strout wrote. End of story!
As opposed to, say, HBO’s “The Leftovers.” That, too, will be back for a second season and seems determined to spin its wheels long after Tom Perrotta’s original plot ran out.
Well, I’m done.
To every thing, there is a season. Having a definitive endpoint is what makes the time we have so precious. Without that, we’re just “Lost.”