A Mistaken Judgment

For the last couple of years, we have been members of Netflix. Almost all the movies I rent were made before 1980. Since Mr. Fixit and I have completely different tastes, I try to balance the orders between classic movies and British TV mysteries for me, and old westerns and some action movies for him.

Today when I decided to add to my queue, I noticed that the first category of THEIR suggestions for me based on my rental history was “Violent TV Shows”. These included “The Shield,” “Shaka Zulu,” “Heroes,” “Forever Knight,” “24,” “Rome,” and “Roar.”

How could the good folks at Netflix come to the conclusion that I like “violent” TV shows? Most recently I have been viewing a few Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple’s, a few Hamish Macbeth’s, several Inspector Lynley’s, three or four Charlie Chan’s, and several of the Morse spin-off, “Inspector Lewis.” Granted, these are murder mysteries, but they are decidedly unviolent. In most of them, you may see a few unrealistically “clean” corpses (no bullet holes, no stab wounds, no bulging tongues from strangulation, etc. TMI?). You sometimes see a discrete puddle of blood.

When “The Shield” first aired, I watched it twice. It was too violent for me and seeing the corruption made me feel. . .icky. I didn’t watch it again. I have never seen “Shaka Zulu,” “Rome,” or “Roar.” I watched one or two episodes of “Heroes” on the “Watch Now” option offered by Netflix. I didn’t care for it. I thought it was a bit of a bore. I have never seen “24.” I’m not in to political thrillers any longer. I was in that phase about 30 years ago reading Leon Uris, Allan Drury, and others of that genre. I have to admit I have watched a few episodes of “Forever Knight.” When we first had the satellite service installed, there was a network called “Trio.” They aired a lot of programming originating on the BBC, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting), and a few shows from Australia. That’s where I saw “Forever Knight.” I have no idea if it was on American networks. Incidentally, it wasn’t that violent. Knight was a vampire police officer—a good guy.

So, you see, I’m not into violence, just “tasteful” murder. I wonder if I have to start renting “chick flix” to remove this stain from my viewing reputation. Please, please, tell me I don’t have to start watching Julia Roberts and Diane Lane. PLEASE!