There has to be a term for this condition: the empty, vacant emotion you have when you've finished bingeing on a show on Netflix and you don't really want to start anything else because it can't be as good as what you just finished.
Actually, there is a term: lucky citizen of a prosperous country with no other problems whatsoever.
At the movies the other day, there was an ad for a streaming service, and it showed the awful emotional aftereffects of finishing a TV show. The room grew dark; the furniture was draped with gray sheets; the viewer was swallowed by his couch and relegated to a dusty underworld full of loose change and old popcorn.
As an expression of despair, it seemed a bit overwrought. I was sad when I finished "Wallander," a BBC drama about a bleak Swede solving crimes in a rainy, monochromatic country, but I didn't want to draw a warm bath and open my veins, for heaven's sake.
Granted, once you've finished a show you liked, there's an unwillingness to commit to something else. A relationship has ended, and you need some time to rebuild before you plunge right in. You think: "I don't want quality drama with achingly true portrayals of life in the 19th century zinc mines of Botswana. I want to watch Judge Judy yell at someone who thinks she doesn't have to pay rent because the landlord didn't fix the icemaker." (Hello. Make your own ice. Get one of those trays they sell! Judgment for the defendant.)
That said, I'm looking for something else to watch. Netflix is helpful here. If you watched 15 seconds of "What Ho, Admiral!," a British sitcom from 1974, you are encouraged to try "Yardarm McPherson," a show about a cook in Wellington's navy who solves crimes. Because you watched a bit of "Alien Megastructures," a documentary that says the moon has enormous bases cleverly disguised to look like craters, you'll probably enjoy this documentary that insists that the pyramids were made by extraterrestrials who traveled a billion light-years to teach humans how to stack rocks.
Heaven forfend you watched anything with Hitler in the title, because you'll get "Hilter's Gold," "Hitler's Dog" and "Hitler's Goldfish," not to mention "Hitler's Rise," "Hitler's Fall," and "Hitler's OK Middle Period." Of course, there's always "Hitler's Secret Hitler," "Hitler's Secret Phallic-Compensation Mega-Cannon" or my all-time favorite, "Hitler and the Nazis." — which makes it sound like they were a follow-up act to "Josie and the Pussycats."
Mind you, I'm not complaining. Netflix has taught me many things, thanks to its rich library of crime shows from other countries. I have learned that every region of Great Britain has at least one fiendishly clever serial killer who can be caught only by a troubled detective with varying amounts of facial hair. If the beard is stubbled, he's a hard-drinking Irish former cop who can't stop to shave while the killer is out there. If it's wispy facial hair, as with the hero of "Broadchurch," it's because he's a personal mess, haunted by his failure to solve a similar crime before, possibly because he was shaving when the killer struck. If there's no facial hair, it's "Happy Valley," where the detective is a tough-as-nails female detective whose impenetrable Yorkshire accent makes her sound like she's talking around a mouthful of polished stones.
I can only conclude that England is overrun with 34-year-old serial killers who are not the dull-eyed warehouse worker everyone initially suspects, but are, in fact, government officials who slip away from their highly public jobs to strangle prostitutes with their mothers' hosiery. It's amazing that whenever a prostitute is found murdered in England, they don't arrest the entire House of Lords; one of them is bound to be guilty.
In almost every case, these shows are better than American versions of my youth. When I was young, there was nothing in the summer, just "Mannix" reruns and hideous variety shows like "The Bludsoe Brothers Good-Tyme Fun Machine!" Now we have an astonishing wealth of shows at our fingertips, and remotes that respond to voice commands: "Give me a show about a French detective who is trying to smoke more and who has a goatee and investigates a serial killer who is throwing mimes carrying cheese in their pockets off the Eiffel Tower." And, voilà , there's six seasons of "L'Affaire du Silence et Fromage."
You know you'll feel sad when you finish the show, but that's still weeks away. So you give it a shot. And when it's done? Netflix will have another suggestion: "Hitler's Croissants."
If Judge Judy could roam England in a black robe holding a gavel, solving serial-killer crimes, I would be the happiest TV viewer on Earth. Make this happen, Netflix. "Murder, She Yelled." Seven seasons. At the end, she fights Hitler on the moon. I want this to happen just to see what Netflix would recommend next.
james.lileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 • Twitter: @Lileks • facebook.com/james.lileks
