regarding sherlock, and thresholds

[no spoilers! no worries.]

I've known for a while that I needed to find a TV show to like. Avoiding TV because it's TV is like saying that all books are boring, or all internet articles are useless... and then never reading anything. So first I thought about 'Community,' because I'm basically living at a community college and all... but instead, I went for 'Sherlock.'

What an idea that was.

So I have a problem with audio-visual media. I am extraordinarily sensitive to movies and television. Somewhere along the line when normal kids learn that What Is On The Screen and What Is Real Life are two different things, I skipped class to have a tea party with my teddy bears. As a result, I am one of those annoying people who leaves the room when a movie gets too sad, too scary, or just too awkward. And sometimes? I'm just overstimulated. There's so much going on, and I can't handle it all.

'Sherlock' about did me in.

Most crime shows I've seen do something to diffuse the tension... to give you a hint as to what's coming next... to pepper the action with random comic relief*... to give you a break. From the very first episode, this show refuses to do that. And then there were six of those.

During the first one, I thought my brain was going to explode. There is a lot of action, and the director uses a lot of jump shots, so you have to be constantly on your toes just to get a picture of what's happening. And once you get that picture, you have to work pretty hard to decide what to think about that picture. Is it reality? Is it some great farce? What's happening behind that door? Why is the screen going black? My adrenaline was pumping for all 90 minutes. I felt like I had just lost a few weeks off of my lifespan because my heart rate was permanently altered. This was not just an emotional reaction... this was physical.

But 5 episodes later after that first one (of increasing intensity, no less), I stand before you, alive. My heart rate has gone back to normal. In fact, other than some slightly embarrassing pillow-squeezing during the last episode, I made it through relatively unscathed.

I didn't react as much to the (ridiculous) sixth episode as I did to the first.

Why?

Something in me changed. It's different now, and I find it very odd... my I Am Certain This Will Kill Me threshold is a good bit higher. My tolerance for Trauma-Induced Adrenaline is higher.

Does this mean I need lots of action and suspense to keep me satisfied, to keep me interested? I don't think so, yet. I think it could. But I read The Screwtape Letters yesterday, and now I'm reading Story of a Soul (the spiritual autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux), and neither of those are particularly intense. But I wonder... after a while, will raising the Amount Needed To Kill Me necessitate raising The Amount Needed To Impact Me?


*Edited to add: given, this show is hilarious. I think when I wrote this I was more reeling from Reichenbach Fall than I wanted to admit, and hence was casting that terror back more than I ought to have. But I hold that any of the comedy is not 'relief' in the usual sense. Good grief. It's all intense.