Why You Should Watch ABC's Men in Trees

This show is funny, inquisitive, thought rendering, enjoyable and an absolute pleasure to watch. I just hope it stays that way. You can watch it for enjoyment. You watch it and then say "Oh, I never thought of it that way before" and learn something new! You don't have to "work" so hard just to keep up with the storyline because it moves so fast if you blink, you miss something, You watch Men In Trees and when its over, it leaves you with a calm, content and happy feeling instead of tension, stress and fear! It leaves you with a thought or solution to an issue that you might be able to use in your own life.

Marin is a woman from New York who is a famous speaker and author about life, love and relationships. The basic storyline is that 4 weeks before her wedding, she accidently finds out her soon-to-be-husband/boyfriend of over a year, just had an affair. So on her way to a book signing, she finds herself stuck in a small town in Alaska.

The classic "Up-town girl meets the county" is portrayed quite sensibly and intelligently, yet humorously and fun, instead of the usual giddy, "valley girl", empty-headed blonde kaos. It gives you things to think about that maybe you can use in your life.

Marin finds out that often "city people" are not all they are cracked up to be but more importantly, that "country" people are MORE than they are given credit for. The city has luxuraries, but the country has heart. She questions herself about how can she advise and help others to have a sucessful relationship or about love, when her relationship fell apart, and love was lost.

Being a small town, there aren't many places to visit socially, so she ends up in the local country tavern. In admist of all these men,"The odds are good, but the goods are odd" is what lays the ground work for her to learn that there are at least 2 sides to every story and at least 2 sides to every feeling....It's all in how you look at it and use it in your own life.

When her fiancee finally finds her and begs her to come home to New York and get married, it is the town that sticks up for her which gives her reason to stay - that being, that she is her own person, and she can decide what she wants to do in life, instead of life and others deciding for her. She is learning that not all education comes from books or universities. Alot of it comes from the simplistics and common sense life has to offer....if you just look for them.

Marin is learning that all the tangible things in life that are there to be had, are not always necessary or make life easier. There is time to stop and smell the roses, or in this case, feel the calmness of the beautiful snow covered mountains! Life can sometimes not be as complicated as we all tend to make it. I think the series portrays this famously. It appears to be going in the direction of less stress, less tension and less aggrivation, as in each episode, Marin learns "All is not lost. You just have to make some adjustments and you are the one that chooses those adjustments"

The Sept 22 episode dealt with Marin realizing that she has had a man in her life since she was 14 and depended on him so much, that she's never done anything by or for herself. She realized that because she never learned to do things, she was a totally dependent person instead of the independent woman she thought she was. She realized it wasn't because she was incapable of being an independent person, it was because she was just afraid of being alone. The show ends with a soliloquy, where she realizes that being alone is all in how you look at it and how you use it to your personal advantage. Life doesn't always end in obvious happiness, but that sometimes it's all in how you look at what you ended up with and what you do with it, that will determine your own happy ending!

They also bring in other characters and while the main theme seems to be what Marin is going through, at the end you will see that the storyline of the other characters were enacting the solutions to what Marin learns in the end. In this same episode, they had 2 people that were lonely and then found each other. Another couple that had each other, but drifted apart and decided they preferred being alone. A third couple where one had been lonely and figured out how to move on with his life, while the woman he has known for years, decides to stay lonely. In the end, as you listen to the soliloquy, you realize that the other characters storylines were pointing out 4 "sides" of loneliness and it showed you 4 solutions that worked - which one do you choose?

I personally like Men In Trees as it is refreshing to see a drama set in a place other than a huge city. It is refreshing to watch a show that gives you some "food for thought", deals with "normal" problems, and offers you usable soluctions. It is so enjoyable to watch a show that is not filled with violence, sex, killing, divorce, or full of politically correct jargons and situations. It is nice to watch a show that is about "regular" people that actually work "regular" jobs and have "regular" lives and with "regular" problems just like the rest of us, instead of a bunch of yuppies that all live together and supposedly have these fantastic jobs, but always broke, raising their kids in an adult world and there's nothing else in the story line but sex, divorce and and who's sleeping with who now. And of course, always a happy ending but about something that is basically stupid anyway.