Questions of morality

It used to be that someone died, 55 minutes later the case was solved and everyone went home.  Occasionally, it was a little bigger than that and we were “continued” into the following week.

Today’s new television dramas are becoming massive conspiracies and crimes that push everyone to their limit. 

This fall’s Blacklist involves the FBI working with someone who’s not just “the bad guy” but the FBI’s most wanted criminal in the world. 

And a simple murder is no longer good enough.

The world must literally be coming to an end.  So Fox’s Sleepy Hollow has bypassed the simple mystery of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman. 

Instead, the centuries-old hero is now battling an impending apocalypse.

Scandal started out as famous people getting caught doing bad things on a weekly basis.  Now it’s morphed into a 21-year-old conspiracy that involves government black-ops, the president and an intentionally-crashed commercial airliner.  

The Following involved not just a crazed serial killer, but an entire country full of devotees – seemingly normal people who killed on his behalf. 

And NBC’s newest series, Crisis, has the children of Washington’s most powerful families kidnapped as leverage for international terrorists.

Each new drama seems to ask the question: “How far would you go …?”  To save the world? To save your family? To do what’s right?

It’s a question we ask ourselves while we discuss these shows – while we debate a guy with Stage 4 cancer who becomes a drug manufacturer so he can leave his family financially secure when he dies. 

A man who becomes a hero for a record number of AMC viewers.
It’s an interesting philosophical discussion.  But I have to wonder what it’s doing to our perspective.

Our own everyday life is rarely full of those big life-and-death moments. 

They’re usually much smaller questions of morality that barely get a second thought. 

We litter, speed, illegally download movies. We park in a handicapped zone. We break what we consider the “small” laws. 

We’ll occasionally bully somebody, whether it’s the clerk at the returns counter or members of our church committee. 

We cheat a little when we can.  And we never stop to consider whether it’s the right thing to do.  Or if we care that it’s not.
Morality seems to require a big show of cause and effect for us to even take notice.  So are we just following the lead of what we see around us? 

Or is television simply reflecting a change in societal values where the little things don’t really count anymore?

Just check your TV line-ups.  The everyday stories of average folk making simple choices – like the Bravermans on ­Par­ent­hood – are becoming an endangered species.  Even the reality shows about families are staged for effect.

Of course, who would watch a show about everyday heroes who open doors for strangers, cut their neighbour’s lawn or say thank you to their waitress? 

Who would care about that?