It is an investment of time to watch a series. It didn't feel that way when I was little, eating cinnamon toast in front of Dick Van Dyke or Andy Griffiths. But over the years of thirty minute episodes I did feel like Laura Petrie and Barney Fife were my friends. Surely if we passed on the street they would smile.

These days there are seasons that spill into each other, such that we can observe as children grow up, and coworkers fall in love. Downton Abbey, Call of the Midwife, Madame Secretary, and West Wing are television shows that I immersed myself in.  I find that those stories go deeper. In the course of seeing Jed Bartlet prevent a war using chess strategies in the Taiwan Strait, and the midwives of Nonnatus House catch babies in all kinds of circumstances, and Anna remain faithful to her husband in prison, I witnessed integrity. Those are characters that take longer than half an hour to develop. Watching those people, fictional as they are, has enabled me to see things in a fresh light. I have more compassion for people whose lives are quite dissimilar to mine, not working on Capital Hill or the slums of London. 

There are times when I wish my sense of honesty could hurry up. Can't it happen in a mini series? Yet crafting humans is even more complicated than writing a script.