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Come on, change the channel
A phrase I repeat every night when, like a good southern family, we can start having dinner. But no, nothing. There's no way. Almost as if it were a pill to be taken during meals under penalty of health reprisals, 'Un posto al sole' has to be watched daily. And so it is that, at the expense of probably more important news on the news or any film on a private channel, the lady of the house Sandro Giacobbe forces the whole family into an almost obligatory viewing.
'But I start watching it, and then I get bored and change the channel,' says the cause of my indigestible dinners for 10 years now. But it all vanishes into an illusion, the program almost my contemporary seems to be truly immovable from this poor television. And so it is that between a bite of chicken breast and a handful of salad, Viola's irritating voice risks choking me. I take a bit of bread, do the famous 'scarpetta', lift my head, and this time it's yet another dog-like acting performance by Filippo threatening to make me vomit even my soul. A rumor here, a cheating there, a slap over there, and against the backdrop of the Palladino palace, I nervously check the clock, hoping the torture will end.
'Look there, I bet she's cheating on Nico.' And just after two episodes, the young actor cries disastrously fake tears to his best friend. 'Mamma, but how the hell do you do it?' and the answer is often misleading. But the truth is, when you follow the same show consistently for years, you realize that, in the end, the same things always happen. And it's at that point that I turn, look at the clock, and realize there are still 5 minutes left until the ordeal ends.
And it's in the most annoying way possible that each episode ends. Like in a mysterious alchemy, what you could never have imagined happens. The plot engages you. To the point where you're there, towards the final minutes, head turned to the screen to see if Filippo is really the father of the child or not. You do a quick back and forth TV-clock check to see if the remaining time can reveal such crucial information, and you hope. They open the medical file, and just before they read it, you hear the damn final theme song, swear in Croatian, and lie to yourself shamelessly: 'Well, in the end, who cares about Un posto al sole anyway?!?' And in the meantime, you peek at the preview on Google, just, you know, not because you really want to know... Just for kicks.
Despite the pleasure of watching being reserved for quite a few, it seems that those 30 minutes and a bit go by really quickly. And amidst a critique of the script and an insult to Guido, you understand that in the end, it's not important what you watch, but with whom you watch it. Because time passes, but Un posto al sole seems to be one of the few things that, today, as 10 years ago, always manages to keep us united, at the table, as tradition says.
If Filippo is not Irene's father, I'll be pissed, though.
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