And now, I am ready to reveal my history of addiction…to British television.

It started, as it often does, with early exposure.  During the 1970’s, I would sneak out of my bed to watch secretly from the stairs over the living room as my father viewed episodes of Masterpiece Theater, Upstairs, Downstairs, and I, Claudius. 

As the years passed, I could stay up later, and we had a second television.  I indulged freely, especially in British comedies: Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served?, Blackadder, Fresh Fields, and Last of the Summer Wine.  By the time I was out of college and lived on my own, it became fully pathological.  I told myself this was all casual viewing–perhaps somewhat unusual for a young American man in his twenties–but I could stop any time I wanted to.

Then came Keeping Up Appearances.  All control was lost.  It was the 1990’s, and I had a VCR, taping many episodes so I would have an emergency fix in the event of my local PBS affiliate pre-empting my Friday Britcoms for a fundraising event.  I marginalized and ultimately isolated myself socially, living only for my end-of-workweek dose of fish and chips and Hyacinth Bucket.

Once I began to understand I had a serious problem, I weaned myself somewhat, trying to get by on milder intoxicants such as Rosemary and Thyme, The Monarch of the Glen, and Doc Martin.  I experienced some success and was trying to rejoin the world.  Until, that is, I hit rock bottom.

That was Downton Abbey.

I will not go into all of the dark details of that infernal phase.  I will merely state that I emerged in 2016, fully resolved never to undertake viewing another BBC series–ever.  I studiously avoided all of my former addict friends, who would inevitably try to tempt me toward Sherlock, The Crown, Call the Midwife, Bridgerton, and others.  My newfound sobriety meant everything to me.  I now had control of my life again.  I had the outdoors; I had time to sleep at night; I could think again in my native American accent.

For six years, I was clean.  I took one day at a time, gratefully looking back on the dark days of my BBC-induced prison as they receded toward a distant and faint horizon.  I truly began to feel safe–to feel free.

And at such a moment, such a hapless soul as I would least suspect a seemingly innocent, apparently harmless influence to enter my life: a colleague in teaching and in writing–a wise, seasoned professional.  This individual would provide sage commentary on my verse and engage me in provocative professional discourse regarding the education of adolescents in our modern, digital-media context.  Cherishing influence and inspiration wherever I can find it, I placed a high value on this new acquaintance.

But we can never fully know the dark secrets carried in silence by those who move in and out of our cycles and circles.  We catch dark glimpses in moments of grim revelation–and often at the most unlikely of moments.  One minute, this professional associate and I can discuss the implications of parental disengagement from the learning process, and in the next, this individual might say, “You should check out Foyle’s War.”

And in an instant, six years of sobriety come to a violently abrupt end!

And in this age of instant digital access, I am defenseless against my cravings and urges.  Data streams into my television, and I disappear into a vortex of swirling episodes set in an English countryside at the start of the Second World War, and I am extruded through past decades into the glory and decadence I had fooled myself into believing I could escape.

Ah! One can only surrender.