Sunday nights were special in our home in Brisbane in the 1970s. On Sundays, and only on Sundays, we were allowed to eat dinner in front of the television.
The big wooden-cased telly was in the corner of the lounge room. We kids would sit on the floor so as not to slop anything on the couches, with tea towels carefully laid out under our plates so as not to slop anything on the floral carpet. Mum and Dad sat on the couches. I guess they were tidier eaters.
The windows of our old Queenslander would be wide open in the hope of a breath of breeze, the flying foxes shrieking in the paw-paw tree outside. We’d all be there, ready, even before the theme music started for the serialised Sunday night ABC drama.
And then we’d be back in 1880s Sydney, in the world of Seven Little Australians, wondering why lovely young Esther ever married that horrible distant Captain, hating him for forcing wonderful wild Judy to go away to school. We worried for a week that Judy would die of tuberculosis, and then cried when she was killed by a falling tree trying to save her little brother.
Or we’d be on the dusty Victorian goldfields, watching the drama Rush. We cheered for Sergeant McKellar, who always fought for the law to be fair, and also happened to be played by a dishy young John Waters. We were enthralled by the big budget series following the life of the bushranger Ben Hall.
It was all terrific Australian drama, telling Australian stories, but that’s not what makes me nostalgic for those nights in front of “the box”. There’s been a lot of great Australian drama since then.
What I miss is how it felt to watch it together. My own family doesn’t watch much TV together any more.
We did, fleetingly, when the children were younger and excited to watch “grown-up” television – more gentle ABC dramas like Bed of Roses or Call the Midwife or Anzac Girls on weekend evenings on the couch.
But the box is skinny now, and rapidly becoming obsolete. The kids, mostly grown, usually watch their shows on their own devices, in their rooms.
And in the era of on-demand, when we do look for something to watch together, someone has inevitably already binged the popular options, consumed them in one sitting as soon as they dropped. The choices are so vast, it’s hard to agree. Those outvoted can so easily split off to watch their preferred show.
Technology and time of life mean the joy of jointly anticipating a new and slowly unfolding drama is difficult to achieve, and any rationing is self-imposed.
I’m not really pining for the good old days. Choice is good, and I’m as susceptible as the next person to that tantalising question, “Shall we watch another one?” – the siren call of streaming.
But I do miss the experience of watching something as a family, of having a whole week to talk about the plot and wonder what might happen, with no option to press “play next episode” and no choice but to gather together the following Sunday at the appointed time in the lounge room to find out. There was something comforting and connecting in that shared anticipation.
