Long before I even knew how to count series (or “seasons”, now that I live in the US), or what it meant for a television show to be renewed or cancelled, I experienced the loss of a fave. Dempsey and Makepeace was the first TV show I remember ending. Back when I thought television was truly infinite – which is to say, when I had no idea that everything I enjoyed had come from somewhere and would eventually return to that dust – I just assumed stories would progress … for ever. I was half in love with frosty Glynis Barber, who played Makepeace, by the time I realised I had only a set number of episodes to watch until the end of time. Rewatching anything in the late 1980s was just not an option. I’m not being dramatic when I say my heart broke a little.
It is a heartbreak I have gone on to replicate. I’ve mourned so many: the other TV shows of my youth (ah, Robin of Sherwood!), my teen years (As If feels like a fever dream now, it was that special), my late teens (I am a ride-or-die Ally McBeal fan).
Even when it feels like a hiatus rather than a straight end (remember the methadone-weaning we got via three hours of Friends’ repeats every single day?), the death of a beloved television show is now a modern condition we all have to live through.
One of my long-term shows, New Girl, came to an end these past few weeks. There is now a small hole in my chest where, for almost a decade, lived the promise of new episodes and more Zooey Deschanel. But call me Gloria Gaynor, because I will survive: seven years have left the coffers embarrassingly well-stocked and there are 150 episodes that I will revisit often, thanks to streaming.
Modern life is glorious.
