Never mind dropping out; as far as turning on and tuning in go, there’s never been a better time. Over the past decade, both cable and the major networks have upped their game, giving us better writing, better characters, better jokes, and better plot twists than we’ve ever seen on the small screen. As for the advertising—well, that’s another story.

There may be, as the song goes, 50 ways to leave your lover. But it appears there are 100 ways to meet your maker, especially nowadays when hardly a year passes without another troublesome prediction about the end times.