Here's a test to determine the extent of what TV drama has done to your thought process.

The following lines are from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1.

"To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?"

Here's the plot: The ghost of King Hamlet tells his son Hamlet, Jr. that Claudius (the brother of King Hamlet) murdered him and thereby took the throne of Denmark from Hamlet, Jr.

Wait. It gets a little more complicated. In doing so, Claudius is guilty of a multitude of sins, including murder, fratricide (killed his brother), regicide (killed his king) and marrying his brother's widow, Hamlet's mother, (incestuous by this era's standards), which isn't mothercide -- that's ridiculous -- but is more toward Claudius getting a mother-on-the-side kind of torment for Hamlet.

Of course Hamlet becomes obsessed by thoughts of revenge that psychologically thwart and compel him because of underlying subtleties that only a shrink would bother pondering. Hamlet has been emasculated by losing his central role model of masculinity (his father and the throne), and he now knows that his love for his mother is corrupted (she's bagging it with his father's murderer, now his sworn enemy).

Worse, only Hamlet and the ghost-father know about the murder, and if Hamlet keeps his Teutonic revenge code up to snuff and kills Claudius, then his friend will despise him as a back-stabber.

Okay, there are more sticky-wicket plot twists but, really, this is a short column, and besides, at the end of the play, Hamlet was king for about 60 seconds after killing Uncle Claudius and before dying by the hand of his friend who thought he was a back-stabber. Incidentally, his mother also died at the same time, as did his killer friend.

Test question: Did the tune "do-be do-be do" inspire Shakespeare's line, "To be or not to be?"