In-Flight Televigion
I Saw the TV Glow, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Saturday Night and Hacks
Much has been said1 about the weird magic and exaggerated emotions that are allowed to emanate while watching the small2 screen on a long-haul flight, and I can happily and anecdotally join in with that. I’ve laughed more, I’ve certainly cried more and with everything I watch on a plane, I feel so much more immersed in the world of it.
I'm delighted that there's a place where televisual arts can get closer to the root of you, just by virtue of a location very high off the ground in a dry and droning metal tube. The feeling of immersion is odd. The outside atmosphere you’re in is certainly distracting - other people’s screens through the seat gaps and across the aisles, lack of space and options for movement, the promise of food very slowly moving towards you3. But I suppose that outside world is solidly consistent, you’re all in one place with limited options for outside contact. No way out, essentially. And maybe it’s actually because the constrained world you’re in is slightly too uncomfortable and not very enjoyable, that the escape of screen entertainment is easier to slide into.
It’s a position of great privilege to have upwards of five hours to dedicate to curating your own high-altitude film festival. Although I’m very much a TV guy, it’s almost regulation that you have to choose films, if only to fill out the runtime.
And I‘m very glad for the selection there is to choose from - generally it feels wide enough to have options, but narrow enough to avoid overwhelming you. We all know the perils of Choice Overload on a home-based streaming service. It’s also great that you can skip forward 30 seconds consistently these days to avoid ridiculous adverts for perfume, cars and other travel while you’ve already very much selected your travel.
So what did I go for on my 13 hours of travel - 7 hour flight out, 6 hour return? One film I’ve been desperate to see since I first heard about it, that did not disappoint (“I Saw the TV Glow”), one sequel I am the target audience for and couldn’t finish (“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire”), one film that I hadn’t planned for4 by dint of the the return leg being a new month (“Saturday Night”) and two episodes of a TV show I’d given up on at home (“Hacks”). Other than that, I was attempting and utterly failing to convince my four year old to sleep5 , utterly failing to convince my brain to switch off for any sleep of my own, or enjoying the party hat and turkey dinner on the flight out6.
So, here’s a quick summary of my over-emotional reactions.
I Saw the TV Glow - This is the one I’ve been waiting for7. Not one I’d expect to be on an in-flight entertainment service. It feels too niche, too underground, too unknown. So I was delighted. And I was delighted by the film too, utterly enthralled and a blubbery mess. I may well write a whole post about it at some point. Although it is about many things - not least coming of age, repressed identities and the devastation of denial - the part that gripped me the most was the power that memories of TV can have and how formative they can be. As a teenager, in a darkened room before I tried to go to sleep, I used to run through entire interviews of myself on Parkinson’s chat show, talking about the work I’d most recently done, being as funny as Billy Connolly, as manic as Robin Williams, and as open as Paul McCartney. The magic of “I Saw the TV Glow” would have existed for me anywhere, so it was just an extra heightening of an already great film. I’ve been trying to think if I had an equivalent show to The Pink Opaque, the show that the main characters are so attached to and make into something more for themselves than it later appears on rewatch. And I think mine is Quantum Leap. I think I’ve traced large parts of my personality to having to pretend to be someone else (a.k.a. acting), a strong sense of morality (a.k.a. how annoyingly inflexible I am on bending the rules) and a nostalgic romanticism for the 1950s in America (that one is straightforward). I think I need to write a Deep Dive on Quantum Leap now too. I urge you to watch this film, however you can.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - The sequel to a relatively successful reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise that I enjoyed, I assumed this would be easygoing fun after the wrecking ball of number 1 above. But unfortunately all I found in the first hour or so that I managed to watch was forced nostalgia, plot elements that didn't make any sense (“you can’t be a Ghostbuster, you’re a child” - yes, I agree, why would you let a child do this at all?) and terrible dialogue. No amount of altitude induced hypoxia could let me enjoy this.
Saturday Night - This is the fictionalised behind the scenes film of the first ever broadcast of what would become the TV institution “Saturday Night Live”. I’ve previously written about why I think SNL is important here
So it was easy for me to fall in love with the jazz rhythms of this ode to SNL and the built up mythology. I think it all meant more to me as it always lingers just outside my pop culture knowledge8, certainly the early days. If I’d grown up on SNL, or had to watch lots of episodes and not just the highlighted best bits, I’m sure the film would feel less magical and I would be less impressed9. But in the colder light of a UK day, I think it would have made a much better TV show, rather than forcing such a large ensemble into two hours. And we could understand the context better. But it has made me want to read the Live from New York book10 and watch the real first episode11 or at least some S1 sketches.
Hacks S1 - I watched this as part of a previous post
but had given up on it. It was definitely chosen to continue the ‘behind the scenes of comedy’ vibe I’d enjoyed with “Saturday Night”, and I needed something to fill the final exhausted hour when I had failed to sleep. As I said before it would work better if the stand up was funny, but I have a feeling it’ll keep sneaking back into my head and I’ll keep watching. I’ll let my increased charitability from the plane environment continue here on land!
We arrived home at 10.45am on a Saturday morning. We had a four hour family nap, did a little light unpacking, made brunch for dinner, then had an 8.30pm family bedtime. The following morning my wife and daughter kept sleeping and I snuck downstairs at 8.30am to watch “Inside No. 9: The Party’s Over”, the documentary about the dark and comic anthology show from Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. The show is often electrifying, and very occasionally not quite to my taste. But I love its ambition, I love Steve and Reece and the League of Gentlemen, I love seeing behind the curtain of TV and comedy and I still very much had the emotional hangover of jetlag. I highly recommend it, and will likely do a Deep Dive on Inside No. 9 at some point too.
So that’s at least three future posts inspired by over-emotionality while travelling in a plane. Please share your own experiences of sobbing uncontrollably while eating chicken or fish, and let me know if you have thoughts on any of the above.
Footnotes
And from the many articles I found, they are all in an endless feedback loop with each other, reporting on the reports of the last report. These four were more entertaining and covered the main points.
Though bigger than they used to be, in a reversal of the time-affected fortunes of most chocolate bars, crisp bags and tolerance for others.
But only after the initial promise has departed through the curtains to the fancier cabins.
Yes, I look up the entirety of the film options on the carrier website before departure, and plan what I might watch. This should not be a surprise if you’ve been paying attention.
Direct quote from her “I’ll just finish this film, then I’ll try” - a girl very much after my own heart.
The Christmas magic bestowed by a paper hat is seriously powerful, I truly enjoyed the economy Christmas dinner from British Airways. And the Christmas pudding shaped cookie for dessert is something I would genuinely buy in a shop.
Except Andy Kaufman, who I had a passion for as a teenager thanks to REM, the film Man on the Moon, and finding this book somewhere, in an order I can’t remember except that the film definitely came last and felt a bit disappointing to have missed bits out.
I don’t disagree with much of this one-star review, except the rating. This one gets closer to my feelings, and this one may also have viewed it on a plane.
I have now ordered it, as my desire to know more has not dissipated.
You can if you’re in the US on Peacock