I can now say I have successfully watched every episode of “This is Us” from Season 1.  We watched the finale episode while on vacation.

Whew! That’s finished.  Thank goodness.

Look, I have nothing against the show. It was actually well done. The characters were likable and all.  The stories were crafted so that there were surprises and elements that sucked you in. You had to keep watching.

When the show first came on, Michelle and I watched. It was pretty good premise: a young couple has triplets, loses one, adopts an African-American infant that had been abandoned, and raises the three kiddos.  

Conflict, angst, joy – all the sappy elements of a heart wrenching drama followed.

We kept watching, but schedules and evening stuff got in the way. We’d check in from time to time, but felt disconnected enough to give up on the story.

Enter our oldest daughter, now old enough to watch heavy dramas and become interested in mature storylines. We started watching with her and like most parents, began to drive her crazy asking “Now who is that?” and other annoying questions.

Because we had started watching together, and spending time with your 19-year-old child is a precious thing, we made a family pact to restart things and watch the show together from the beginning, as long as the 10-year-old was occupied elsewhere.

So, off we went, vowing not to watch anything new or commit to a show until this one was finished.

As I said, the characters were somewhat endearing. I wanted Randall to settle his controlling patootie down. I wanted to see if Kate would find herself, find love, etc.  Even though I thought she was attractive, loyal, funny, and so on, I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit I thought she might be secretly thinner under her fashionable ensembles.  

So, everyone kept watching for a possible big reveal. Don’t say you didn’t.

Then there was Kevin, who I never quite warmed to. Maybe because men who are too fit and pretty irritate me. I’m not sure. I found him pretty unlikable for most of the series.

I liked the parents enough. Jack’s childhood was well-written and made you look past his face, always having that smoldering arched eyebrow thing that novice actors in soap operas do. 

Rebecca was always beautiful, but I contend it is nearly impossible to age an actress that is that pretty and has such a youthful sounding voice. I had a hard time believing Mandy Moore was really in her 60s or 70s. She was just too dang pretty. I also found her whiny and cringy at times.  

Thank goodness she was pretty.

One of my beefs with this show was how smooth and tidy they packaged the end of Toby and Kate’s marriage.  It was all done in one episode, basically.  And in the end, it showed everyone how wonderful divorce could be. 

I think that’s awful. Divorce shouldn’t be neat, tidy and doable. Plus, I didn’t think the reason for the break-up was something they couldn’t have worked through if they weren’t so whiny and self-centered.  

My favorite character was Beth, Randall’s wife, because she just told it like it was.  She was always talking about how the Pearson clan held themselves above the rest. How you had to love football or know about football to be in the family.  All their weird party and holiday traditions that we heard way too much about.   How they all had to have long talks and poignant life lessons every time someone skinned a knee or got burned by a friend or a love interest.  

After a while, it all got rather repetitive and annoying.  I often would say “All right, we don’t need a big heart-wrenching speech here.” 

Surely I wasn’t the only one.

But, just like many other things on television that use cheap ploys to suck in viewers, I was hooked on this show and had to see how it played out. I guess life is like that sometimes: we are irritated and annoyed, but we have to see how things end.

Just so you know, and maybe I’ve told you before, the same thing happened to me with the first few seasons of “The Bachelor.” 

That really ticked me off.