TV Show Dogs

We love the TV series BILLIONS. (What is not to love about rocking Damian Lewis as Axe?)

But there are two dogs in the first season of BILLIONS and about halfway through the first season the dogs just disappear. This is not right. Sure, Axe's dog gets neutered, so maybe he becomes invisible. And Chuck's dog serves as a poopy-pick-up foil but then disappears as if this world has no more dog shit to pick up.

I conducted a Google search: "What happened to the dogs in BILLIONS?" Answer, unsatisfactory. Overheard in the Writers' Room: "Don't worry. No one will notice if the dogs are written out." 🐶

We notice.

Dogs are not token characters! If you introduce a dog into a story, the dog should be as important as any other character. (In BILLIONS, the human offspring mostly disappear, too. That's also a narrative problem, but you can guess that it bothers me a lot less than vanishing dogs.)

There are so many things to worry about in this world: climate-change deniers, nationalistic ideologies, fascism, sexism, racism, a trend toward confirmation bias and fear rather than curiosity and intellectual inquiry, plus a commitment to partisanship over community. We have a US president who cares only about enriching himself, which many recognized during his campaign and many couldn't see because they were enthralled by his rhetoric.

During the first hundred days of Trump's presidency, people have courageously made the commitment to fight his policies. Our best hope is that Trump's incompetence is our saving grace. Trump never cared about the voters; he just wanted their votes. He got them, and they got him. Unfortunately, so did the whole world.

So here is a small plea to TV writers during these unstable times: please don't add disappearing TV show dogs to our long list of worries.