Something about TV series

I like old episodes of Perry Mason. But you have to take it as kind of an anthology. You can't sit there adding up how many murders Perry Mason solved because it was an absurd number. You have to take each case as a stand alone thing, as if none of the other episodes existed.

Matt Dillon shot 407 people over the course of the TV series Gunsmoke including the made-for-TV movies. That was four hundred men and seven women. I doubt he shot any children or very many teenagers. Some were "only" wounded, of course, but a lot of those probably died of their injuries later.

Dillon himself was shot 56 times. The show was on for twenty years (635 episodes) so he was shot two or three times a year. It's nice that there were at least a couple of hundred episodes where he didn't shoot anyone.

I never liked Matt Dillon. I was just a little kid when I watched that show, but seeing Matt Dillon with Miss Kitty turned me off completely to any sort of cowboy sexuality. Remember when MSNBC's Joy Reid said terrible things about Brokeback Mountain because she was outraged at the very thought of homosexuality? I was repulsed at the thought of it only because they were cowboys.

But I'm getting off the subject.

I guess my point is just that TV shows should stop that thing where they're all continuing stories. Every episode should be stand alone. Inconsistencies were part of the aesthetic. For example, on Gilligan's Island, when the Howells think their fortune has been wiped out, the girls try to teach Mrs Howell skills like cooking and sewing that she'll need now that she's poor. Mrs Howell already showed that she could cook and sew in previous episodes.

Of course, TV is a lot less violent than it used to be so this stuff doesn't matter as much.