The Cowl

May 30, 2023

Providence College's Student-Run Newspaper Since 1935

Photo courtesy of Rosie Kelly ’24

Treating the Land: A Weekend Reforesting the Australian Tablelands

April 28, 2023

Rosie Kelly ’24

Photo courtesy of Hill Harper

Hill Harper to Speak at PC Commencement 2023

April 28, 2023

Sarah McLaughlin ’23

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Ryan Incubator Launches in School of Business

April 28, 2023

Thanks to a $2 million gift from the family of Donald Ryan ’69, Providence College has launched the Ryan Incubator for Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Sciences. Not only will the Incubator be a physical space for presentations and collaboration,…

Sarah McLaughlin ’23 and Emma Strempfer ’24
photo of Brady Berard

Photo Courtesy of PC Athletics

AotW: Brady Berard

March 16, 2023

The Providence College men’s ice hockey team has had a tumultuous season so far. After a strong start to the season that saw them in the USCHO top-20 and several victories over other top teams, the Friars finished off their…

Joe Quirk ’23

When to End a TV Show: Balancing Quality and Quantity

by Chelsea Adonteng ’25 on May 30, 2023
Opinion Staff

Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy.

In the current entertainment industry, there always seems to be a television series that seems to lack the ability to accept its winnings and make the difficult decision to announce the final season. This mindset is reasonable: if a television series is successful, tells a good story, and isn’t lacking in its ability to capture its audience with each episode, why shouldn’t it be able to run for as long as the producers want? However, if the general consensus is that a show has overstayed its welcome and is grasping at random storylines just to stay relevant and it becomes difficult to support based on nostalgia alone.

From a creative standpoint, it seems very difficult to maintain a long-running television series that contains quality storylines after having so many seasons. A long-running series can face complications, such as actors wanting to exit the series for the opportunity to expand their careers and work on other projects. When actors want to participate in other projects,  producers are likely to resort to simple methods of eliminating a character’s presence from the show, such as killing them off.

The popular and long-running television series known as Grey’s Anatomy is a prime example of a nostalgic and well-loved show that has poorly written the exits of many characters—with the exception of Cristina Yang—when an actor has indicated they want to leave the show. A well-known death on the show was the death of Meredith Grey’s husband, Derek Shepherd, played by Patrick Dempsey. Shepherd died from traumatic injuries after a car crash, and his painful yet stunning exit was rumored to have occurred due to Dempsey wanting to pursue other projects and possible drama on set.

 Shepherd’s death was not the first nor the last of the deaths that the show has quickly written when an actor feels it’s time to diversify their career experiences. The audience rightfully begins to wonder how long a show can continue when they’re writing off lovable characters so easily.

When television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy continue running for longer than expected, they lose the spark that helped them initially become so popular and the characters lose their appeal to the audience. While viewers try to see past the fact that the show might be losing steam and creativity, they are in a difficult position simply due to sentimentality.

While we all love and appreciate the work and effort being put into these shows, how many fresh and creative storylines can writers come up with before the need for quality scenes and characters overrides the profit?

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Providence College’s Student-Run Newspaper Since 1935

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Campus

“Darty Season” Spells Impending Disaster: Off-Campus Parties Anger Many Members of PC Community

Sports

2022 College Football Season Preview

Why the To-Go Boxes Shouldn’t Be Seen as an Inconvenience

In spring 2022, PC Dining announced its plans for Eco To-Go, a program that allows students to use reusable to-go boxes in Ray instead of wasteful single-use containers. While the initiative is supported by many students, others complained that it is inconvenient. Considering the significant environmental impact of paper and plastic, which these containers are made of, this is an ignorant complaint given our current ecological state. 

While some may argue that these boxes aren’t environmentally harmful because they can be recycled, this is not the case. It is important to reduce our consumption before recycling, which is why the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” is in this order. First, we’re supposed to reduce, then reuse, and finally recycle, meaning that recycling is not the solution. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2018 only 8.7 of plastic was recycled, leaving plastic in landfills and oceans. There is a significant impact of plastic pollution on our marine ecosystems. It’s estimated that every year, eight to 10 million metric tons of plastic enter our oceans. The effects of this are devastating, as plastic breaks down to form microplastics, which many small organisms mistake for food. This is also an issue in terms of biomagnification, as organisms who consume these organisms indirectly ingest this plastic. This is one of the reasons why scientists have recently discovered microplastics in human blood for the first time. 

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A Totally Unnecessary Rant About Hallmark Movies 

by David Salzillo Jr. ’24 on December 8, 2022
Opinion Staff

This article might be upsetting both to regular viewers of Hallmark movies (if such people really do exist) and to children who still believe in Santa Claus. To the latter group, I offer my sincerest apologies.  

Ah, Christmastime—the season for caroling, hot cocoa, and…bad Hallmark movies. Why humanity must suffer through that last one is a mystery. Yet here we are: the filmmakers (one uses that term VERY loosely) behind these cinematic travesties are at it again.  

Technically, they were at it again long before now. Hallmark’s chief executives seem to believe that Halloween marks the first day of the Christmas season. Forget waiting until after Thanksgiving; forget about waiting until the first of November. These people have managed to outdo those infamous radio stations that play Christmas music 24/7 from November to January. Ugh. Doesn’t Hallmark have any sense of shame?  

Now, if the movies were halfway decent, maybe some of this shove-it-down-your-throat-until-you-die-in-a-Christmas-induced-coma consumerism could be forgiven. But alas, trying to find a halfway decent Hallmark movie is like trying to catch Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Where does one even begin? How about with the filmmakers’ complete lack of effort? Seriously, do they care about what they are doing, insofar as it is not bringing them a paycheck? Don’t they understand that snow on someone’s clothes will melt after a few minutes, as opposed to staying there for an entire scene? And don’t they understand that people generally swallow after drinking coffee? If you ever have the displeasure of watching some of these movies, you will be able to find countless other egregious errors like these. It does not take a Francis Ford Coppola or a Martin Scorsese to get these things right.  

Then there’s the incessant presence of hot chocolate, cookies, and bake-offs. The bake-offs in particular irk me: I have never seen nor been to a bake-off in my life, yet somehow they always manage to be a central plot point of Hallmark’s Christmas programming. They would make you think that bake-offs are a fixture of the average American’s life. They have to keep up that small-town aesthetic.  

This brings up another falsely represented aspect of Hallmark movies: their inane platitudes about small-town life. To be sure, I don’t hate small towns, nor do I hate people who like small towns. Living in a big city is not paradise on Earth. Yes, big cities have pollution, traffic, and, worst of all, people. But must their messaging be so clumsy and obvious? By the way, where are the homeless people in these small towns? Where is the trash? Most people have been to enough small towns in their lives to know that they have not eradicated poverty and garbage. 

And don’t get me started on those corny love stories or that stupid derivative rom-com music that plays whenever the main love interests of the stupid plot first meet in the stupid way that they always do. Couldn’t these writers come up with a better way for the true loves to meet, without the clumsily concocted pratfalls? Hallmark characters appear more accident-prone than even the worst of klutzes.  

But why bother getting so upset about this? Because I am upset for you, dear reader. I am upset that you must be subjected to this for the next three months or more. As the great writer Ralph Ellison said, “who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”  

Or maybe not. In that case, try to develop better taste in movies.