It’s not as if I spend a lot of time reflecting on television commercials, but I think it’s interesting that my current favorite commercial and the commercial I most despise feature drugs that battle depression.

          My favorite commercial is for Cymbalta. It has a catchy theme song, melodious and slightly wistful, building to harmonic resolution in the final moments of the pitch. There’s a gentle clarity to the cinematography. The actors convincingly portray the listlessness of clinical depression, which is to say their eyes are flat, hair disheveled; they sleep while their spouses or kids or dogs look on with expressions of worry and/or sorrow. After Cymbalta, joy returns to the faces of the depressed, like a golden sunrise after a stormy night. They return to work, hug their children, walk their dog, and best of all, wash their hair.

          Then, there’s the most heinous commercial in recent memory, which is for Cymbalta’s competitor, Pristiq. This commercial starts with an obnoxiously bouncy song and a metal wind-up toy doll that looks like a redheaded woman, marching in a creepy Hitler youth lockstep. The doll winds down to a complete stop as the music slows. Then, a redheaded actress who apparently was the prototype for the windup doll talks about her depression. At the mention of Pristiq, the dollbot starts marching again, while the woman takes it in her hand and inspects it, head cocked, with a vacant, cheerful expression on her face like she’s stoned or had a lobotomy. Then her family runs in and makes her put down the doll so she can join them in a contrived game of wiffleball.

          All I know is, I’m not depressed, but now I’m interested in scoring some Cymbalta so my life might suddenly be imbued with deeper joy and meaning. But the Pristiq ad, by representing the human condition with a windup toy, a woman in a trance, and forced wiffleball game, manages to make clinical depression look like the better option.