Farewell Tucker

I have a feeling of emptiness. And it’s worse at 8:00 PM on weekdays. Alas, poor Tucker, I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy, as Shakespeare would have waxed. Or more like a constant thorn in the side of misguided progressives' divisive political agenda. And that amused me to no end, although I did find his smugness annoying on occasion. Reluctantly his departure has forced me back into the realm of streaming, the bizarre world of series for the little screen. Which begs the question: What is going on out there?  “Ted Lasso” had been a charming story of a culture clash when a mid-western American football coach is recruited to be at the helm of a British soccer club, caught in a vendetta of sorts to ostensibly drive the club into the ground by the spurned ex-wife of the club’s original owner. Jason Sudeikis plays a corny, golly shucks, character with a big heart that is endearing. But suddenly, in season three, we veered off the rails like Norfolk-Southern with two new storylines, one featuring a gay player and his hidden sexual orientation and another with a main character rebounding from a failed heterosexual relationship who turns to her female business associate for a romantic interlude. Why go there? Did the writers figure it’s the final season anyway, so let’s get our licks in?  Ahem, so to speak. And I heard rave reviews about “The Last of Us,” another apocalyptic zombie thriller along the lines of “The Walking Dead.”  Pedro Pascale is outstanding and thoroughly engaging in his leading role, and the first episode is tragically riveting. But no, hold on there. Episode three is devoted entirely to a gay prepper who finds love in the midst of end of days chaos. And then, not content to have their day in the sun, the writers produced a backstory late in the season explaining that one of the main characters is a lesbian. Is this really reflective of society that homosexuality is that prevalent, or is it more reflective of the percentage of alphabet soup members in the writers guild?  Or perhaps the political leanings of network management. And it appears that both series followed the same script to coin a phrase. Powerful openers with engaging characters to get the audience hooked, then when viewership is at its peak and the series is trending, introduce the gay storylines. This appears to be purposeful manipulation by the networks to ram through an agenda to normalize, to desensitize, to make it a glamorous lifestyle choice. Are there really that many homosexuals out there that we, the heterosexual majority, are required to be immersed in it? And before you liberals go off on a homophobe rant, let it be known that I don’t care what the sexual proclivities are in the deep recesses of society. To each their own. What I do object to is manipulation. And all this pandering to the LGBTQIA+ community smacks of just that, manipulation. I know it's just entertainment, but enough already!