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“Bad Girls” is bad for my health

I had one of the worst TV show experiences of my adult life a couple of months back. I’m just now calm enough and sane enough to comment on it. I think. It’s about the British TV series Bad Girls.

Season one of Bad Girls was very entertaining, even though I had to read recaps to figure out what the heck was being said. Its story arc was logical and easy to follow. It had interwoven drama and characters that made it quite compelling. Basically, there was nothing bad about Bad Girls. Well, except maybe the clothes.

But Bad Girls has also been bad for my health. No, it’s wrong of me to blame the show for my damaged psyche. Actually, what has been bad for my well-being is learning the truth about the different regional zones for DVDs and players — oh, and Dish Network.

My Bad Girls experience started off innocently enough when I rented season one of the series through an online DVD rental company. I would get a disc in the mail, watch it in two days and send it back for the next disc. It was addicting! Then, at long last, something of real import happened between Nikki and Helen. Of course, that’s when season one of the series ended.

I immediately logged on to my DVD rental queue to move up the season two discs so I wouldn’t have to wait more than 3 or 4 days to continue my journey of the Warden and the Inmate’s forbidden love. And that’s when the road to Bad Girls hell began. There was no season 2 available through any U.S. DVD rental company. After I wrapped my thick skull around that inconvenience, I moved on to plan B. I figured I would just buy the series myself and watch it. That’s when the stark reality of differing DVD regional zones hit me square in my lesbian, aching heart.

Why did I not know that there are different regional zones for DVD players? My only response is “Why would I?!” See, I am a victim of the American consumer mindset: I think that if something exists in the world, I can have it. Not a problem. I know that there are those who will read this and say, “roc, this is all you have to do.” Well, let me thank you in advance for caring enough to make suggestions. Really. But if “this is all you have to do” is followed by anything more than “put the DVD into your current region 1 disc–playing DVD player and hit play,” then it is too much for me to follow.

Then a miracle happened. I discovered that the series was being run on Logo. Yay to that news! Well, yay, except I don’t get Logo. I am one of those unfortunate few who subscribe to Dish Network. It’s so typical of Dish not to offer Logo. There’s a reason why they’re second-tier to Direct TV, and it has nothing to do with NFL football packages. It has to do with providing channels. For the last two years, Dish Network has reportedly been in “negotiations” to add Logo to its lineup, but as of now it still doesn’t carry Logo. That is a tough pill to swallow for this American consumer. As a Dish subscriber, I have a zillion shopping channels, religious channels, international channels in a variety of non-English-speaking programming, sports channels — the list goes on for programs that I either have no interest in watching or no ability to understand. Yet the commercial “gay” channel is not an option? Dish Network did the same thing with the Oxygen channel, and certainly the Dish executives were not suggesting that women are a niche market. Were they? Well, maybe they were.

In review, my Bad Girls experience went something like this:

OK, I’m done with my rant, but be very careful when you mention Bad Girls around me. I do not respond well. How can a show I enjoyed so much now be a bad word when I hear it? Ugh.

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