Don't supersize me
Or: Why one discerning viewer refuses to part with his small but beloved television
My editor recently queried me about my TV set. Because I'm the Globe's TV critic, I think he expected to hear a lot of home-theater geek-talk involving 50-something inches of plasma, a pounding, hyperreal surround of sound, and cup holders on a sleek row of viewing chairs. And now that Panasonic has loosed a 103-inch flat screen upon the world and living rooms are morphing into multiplexes, he had the right.
But I could only answer him with my best fake-smart face, which involves raised eyebrows, a slight nod, and a neutral ``hmm." Because I had absolutely no idea how much TV I actually owned. While I do gawk covetously at the flashing walls of screens in department stores (which always seem to use eye-tickling animation to seduce), I haven't bought a new TV set in more than a decade. I believe I may have christened my current box with an episode of ``Melrose Place." And it was during the pre-Locklear era, so we're talking the early 1990s. Back when VHS was relevant.
My TV is the size of a large throw pillow, and it's as fat as last year's Kirstie Alley. It protrudes from both the front and the back of its wooden table, and it refuses to blend in with the pictures on the walls. With a pair of chintzy, trebly stereo speakers popping like dormers from its plastic sides, my TV takes an equal-opportunity approach to the aural experience. That means it makes a Steven Spielberg or Ridley Scott movie sound as magical as, say, Brookline Access Television.
For the record, I dug out my elusive tape measure and learned that my TV screen is but a mere 20 inches. My only nod to TV tech has been a humming
I'm proud of my modest machine -- perversely so, some would say. I love it the way it is. My trusty TV has become a matter of principle to me, and I stubbornly resist buying all the bells and whistles, the mighty hardware that makes bells clang deafeningly and whistles pierce eardrums. I have no wish to run mistakenly for my own phone when the counter-terrorism unit is bustling on ``24." I just don't need to enter the high-tech awesomeness contest. And it's not because I'm nostalgic, or old-school, or cheap, or lazy, or anti-
My ordinary set helps me keep my eye on what's essential about the TV material I cover -- primarily fictions such as drama and comedy series, made-for-TV movies, and (yes, they're fictional) reality shows. Without a lot of sophisticated sensory overload, I think, a show's writing, acting, and editing stand out more clearly. I can stay in touch with the true marks of good storytelling, without having to parse them out from a dazzling barrage.
TNT is currently midway through a four-week series of sci-fi and horror tales called ``Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King." They're a weak collection, but they share the kind of slick production values and digital effects that can distract viewers from thematic and structural shortcomings. On a massive TV set, you could easily finish an episode feeling as though you'd had a significant visceral experience, and you could just as easily forget that the experience didn't really have a point. It's like going to a 3-D movie and finding the depth-effect so cool you don't bother to notice the lack of story depth.
The TNT sci-fi series left me hankering for one of Sci Fi's classic ``Twilight Zone" marathons, so I could do a Zen-like purge and get even closer to what matters. Despite its ancient, cardboardy sets and its broad, expressionistic acting, ``The Twilight Zone" delivered. It was written and performed to reach viewers, not accost or distract them. It speaks as loudly on 20 inches as it does on 40.
Look, I'm not resisting visual vavavoom. (Go ahead, say it out loud.) The sepia evocation of grimy discomfort in ``Deadwood" and the exaggerated suburban portraiture of ``Desperate Housewives" are brilliant flourishes, and they contribute to their shows' themes. They are forms that match and complement and accentuate content. They're part of the writer and director's vision, not part of a conspiracy to mask the lack of vision with bombast. While sensory perks on a state-of-the-art home theater can't disguise a dull televised sports event, they sure can give drama an artificial sense of impact.
Nor am I resisting a high-resolution TV image and strong reception; I'm not a fan of blur, or snow, or black that isn't black. I like to watch my 20-incher without wanting to reach for a squeegee.
But here's the thing. TV is not the movies, and I don't want it to be the movies.
The movies are larger than life, and as we watch them in the anonymous darkness, we're taken out of our daily existence. TV is a more intimate medium, and it thrives on a human scale. It finds us in our homes or, now, on our cell phones and iPods, and it interacts with our realities. If the movies are our collective dreams, and slightly unavailable, TV is our very present stream of consciousness. It tells us the stories we hear every day, and it changes to suit our changes. It's right there in the center of our lives. I like to keep it that way.
Having a smaller TV also keeps the medium in perspective in my home, both figuratively and literally. I don't let the tube commandeer my personal life and my apartment. It's there in the corner, a heavy but quite liftable and movable commodity, for me to attend to at my will. And that's the best way to experience the medium, not just for a newspaper TV critic who watches it for a living, but for all viewers who don't want to be alpha-ed by their tubes. Go to it when you decide to, and don't let it render you passive and dominate you like a hypnotic vampire. It's in your life, and not vice versa.
So I guess I do have an answer to my editor's question, but it's not about height and volume. How outrageously fantastic is my TV set? It's big and loud enough to let me respect the medium, and big and loud enough to let me see through those who don't.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 
