The Doom TV show proves in a strange fictional form that in the land of the free and home of the brave, things can still go bad quickly.
Most Americans have never experienced the suffering of a Third World country, its economy, or totalitarian dictatorships.
The ancient Roman philosopher and satirist Seneca put it simply: “I judge you to be unlucky because you have never experienced misfortune. You have lived a life without rivals – no one can know your abilities, even Even you yourself don’t know.
Immigrants and U.S. service members are the exceptions, of course, but for them, Doom TV may be closer to home than most.
The COVID-19 pandemic is so close to the fictional universes of The Last of Us and Station 11 that modern Americans will be able to experience it… hopefully.
This is not intended to alleviate the suffering that many people have endured during the pandemic. This is just a comparison to the real-life circumstances and fictional world-wide destruction that is perpetuated in unfortunate countries.
It was death’s feather-light caress for diseases like the Black Death, which destroyed 2/3 of some towns and communities. In fact, these fictional universes are dark ghosts—signs of what might be.
While the fungal zombie mutations were a stretch, giving viewers a long-term antagonist, the idea of a disease wiping out most of humanity was not.
More worryingly, the next unstoppable world-killing microscopic virus or bacterium could be in a series of vials somewhere, or be undergoing a series of mutations that will eventually make its way to humans.
This is a sobering thought. Doom TV shows like The Last of Us and Station 11 depict potential, but often fail to fully convey the “before” outside of snippets and flashbacks.
The real problems begin when there are no more people working in the fields, no more drivers delivering produce, no more stockers unloading produce into grocery stores. Nothing stimulates human activity more than hunger.
Once the stores are emptied and all the goods being transported are gone, things get real, especially in a city where it’s nearly impossible to sustain itself.
Doom TV “hits the mark” because it doesn’t hit the mark. It’s close. Human savagery hides beneath the cracks in the man-made surface.
Of course, we see humans being terrible to each other, pulling at primitive abilities that were buried long ago deep in our civilized and “enlightened” subconscious.
Some call it a “lizard brain,” and we all laugh at the metaphor, never dreaming of what a lizard brain brought to the surface by fear and hunger is actually capable of.
The Yellowjackets tap into this terrifying potential better than other futuristic, dystopian nightmares, and in a subtler, smaller way (small groups vs. large societies).
Humans are incredibly creative, but we can only imagine so much without experience. As a result, Doom TV only briefly taps into those innate impulses—the natural tendency to survive at all costs.
That’s why we feel slightly uneasy when we readjust on the couch, even though our bodies don’t feel uncomfortable. We grit our teeth slightly and maybe even look away, ashamed of our inner awareness that we can’t put into words.
Panic is a brutal feeling, and to some extent, shows like The Last of Us, Station 11, Fallout, and Y: The Last Man are able to capture that essence, at least in Visually it is.
The closest message I can give you is this: expel all the air from your body and hold your breath until you can no longer hold it any longer. Now, imagine that the ambulance is still two miles down the road.
The Doom TV series often struggles to capture these raw elements – the moments when human instinct and nature react when faced with horrors and choices we don’t have or may never face.
Maybe that’s why we love it so much. It’s a pseudo-confession as we allow the spoons of apocalyptic television to gently stir the darkness within. A demon that should never be awakened.
This is why The Walking Dead is so popular. It pushed Game of Thrones to its peak long before David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were tearing it apart with the gusto of a drunk dog accidentally on meth.
Shows like Silo spend a lot of time focusing on the social implications of post-apocalyptic life, while The Last of Us abstractly follows the journeys of individuals within society.
Really good Doom television combines these elements into a cohesive story. Each pitted against the other in a symphony of degradation, oppression, resistance and heroism.
Stephen King’s “The Stand,” the “War of the Worlds” series, “Colony,” “Wayward Pines” and “Into the Badlands” all achieve only fleeting moments that hit home.
The best dystopian visions of the future are grounded in realism and human psychology, able to last longer and resonate with our darker natures.
This is something we talk about behind closed doors – a shameful imagination that an individual would never share with another human soul.
After all, if Joe Smith said what he wanted to do to the guy who pulled up in front of him at a busy intersection, poor Joe might end up committing.
The characters in the fictional world of Doom television are, at least to some degree, those of imagination made real, and only insofar as television ratings, trappings of civilized society, and our own emotions allow.
No matter how bleak, despairing, hopeless, and decadent society may seem on television, nothing can compare to what a starving mother does for herself and her starving children.
Doom TV is just an echo, a curse word that no one wants to say out loud, a possibility that no one wants to acknowledge.
Because if we had to admit it, it would shatter the glamorous exterior. We wake up, go to work, come home, make dinner, hug our loved ones, talk about our day, and get ready to watch a new episode of The Last of Us.
But somewhere in our DNA, cavemen, buried in darkness far below the surface, cornered by warring tribes, had nothing to lose.
Are some of these shows a little too close to home for your comfort, or do you prefer to see something a little darker that makes the real world seem a little brighter?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
