Some Thoughts on my Daytime Viewing

Now, I hinted at this a few weeks ago, but I think it's time to go ahead and say it aloud. And, believe me when I say that it pains me to admit this, but I don't think that "Unsolved Mysteries" holds up as I age. For those of you wondering how I can still watch "Unsolved Mysteries" in today's day and age, let me remind you that I am currently blessed with (a) tons of free time during the day that those of you who "work" and have nutty things like "health insurance" and "retirement plans" don't enjoy and (b) the Lifetime network. Every day at 1 p.m., I can tune into an hour-long episode of the real life human drama. (Except on Mondays. On Mondays they rerun "Angela's Eyes" in place of "Unsolved Mysteries." Don't even get me started on how I feel about this poor programming decision.) And, also, yes, there was a time in my life when "Unsolved Mysteries" seemed amazing and did resonate with me. I believed that I could contribute to a better, less crime-ridden society by paying careful attention to the dramatic re-enactments and composite photos, and I also thought I was learning a lot of secrets about the world around me that certain key government officials DID NOT want me to know. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must also confess that there was a time when I was relatively convinced that the sought-after suspect in an old Oklahoma murder was my deceased great uncle. It could be true. I could have been watching too much television and needing to get out of the house more. Maybe it's a little of both. We'll leave that one up in the air.) I still think there's a lot to be said for putting wanted criminals on television in an entertaining format. After all, John Walsh and others do capture wanted men and women. Also, I love my Robert Stack. I only wish he had moved into the book on tape business. I find his voice soothing, although that might just be because of how much of him I watched as a child. Do I really like Robert Stack's voice, or does the fact that his voice reminds me of my youth make me like it?Well, now I've wound myself into another chicken or the egg situation. Let's move on. Personally, I was always amazed by how many murderers used to watch "Unsolved Mysteries." It seemed that most of the updates involved a story that began with, "Well, Jake and I were watching 'Unsolved Mysteries' when he seemed to get a little nervous. And, then he said he was going for some smokes during the commercial break, but I noticed that he packed a bag before getting in the car...And, he asked me to make him a lot of sandwiches..." (It also always amazed me how many women made their husbands/boyfriends snacks before watching them run from the law.) Why in the world would you agree to watch "Unsolved Mysteries" with other people if you knew you were a fugitive? Would it really be that hard to say, "Nah, why don't we put the game on instead"? Is it an act of stupidity or ego or bizarre vigilance - "Awesome, another week has gone by without me being featured on national television"? Are these murderers also adopted children who don't know they birth parents, so they're actually hoping to make the "lost loves" but not the "wanted" segments? And, finally, when they do see themselves on "Unsolved Mysteries," would it be that difficult to run after the program rather than in the middle of it? After all, I'm pretty sure that's the definition you get when you look up "arousing suspicion" in the dictionary. Oh well, it's not like I would be a very good fugitive myself. Other than loving wigs and hair dye, I would never remember to respond to my new name, and after my first night of cocktails in a new town, everyone would know my life story - including the details of my crime and how I hoped the actress recreating my tale didn't look fat or splotchy. (Wouldn't that be the worst?) Anyway, my point is this - I used to put some credence into "The Unexplained" segments. I could buy that 2 older women returning from a bingo night at the church saw a UFO and consequently suffered from radiation poisoning. I could accept that strange things do indeed happen in the Bermuda Triangle. But, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I cannot accept that there is a human face on the surface of Mars. And, I certainly cannot get on board with the story I saw a couple of days ago. The segment opens with a seemingly sane and well-dressed, poised young woman discussing the fact that she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She then moves on to detail her prayers, etc. So far, I'm good. I'm even more than good - I'm actually listening which is more than I can say for most of my television viewing. It's when we get to how her prayers were answered that the mind begins to boggle. She says, and I couldn't make this up if I tried, that "a strange vapor" started to fill up the room while she was resting on her bed at home before "a small, floating disk with blinking lights" came in through the window, floated over her body, and went back out the window and that "the visitor from another planet took her cancer away." [Insert stunned silence here.] Is this a joke? Did someone at the "Unsolved Mysteries" office actually buy this? Does someone who has not spent time on mind-altering drugs accept this as fact? How did this one make it past what I assume must be some means of fact-checking or research to verify aspects of a story? Is there a disgruntled employee? An act of sabotage? Was someone so tired of talking to alien abductees that they just became jaded - their dream of working in television reduced to answering a 1-800 line primarily populated with crazies? Was it an experiment gone wrong? Someone wondering how far they could get with nonsense, thinking it would never get on the air? I simply cannot understand. And, even if the absolute absurdity of this story didn't register with producers and assistants, how did it get past the video technicians? After all, someone actually had to listen to this woman describe her miniature UFO, create the image, and impose it over a video of her sleeping body. If that's not a moment when a little bit of you dies on the inside, I don't know what is. So, in so many words, "Unsolved Mysteries" is not all that I remembered it to be, and there goes another piece of my childhood.