Is there a show that you watch even though you know that, not only is it bad, it is probably bad for you? Some people (like my son) like to watch Hannity even though it gives him fits. My husband loves to watch program length commercials for gadgets. He knows that they are mostly crap and he’d be a fool to buy anything, but he can’t help but watch these awful, terrible, loooooong commercials.
Me, if I’m clicking down the dial and this show happens to be on, I have to stop and watch. HAVE TO! And for what? So that I can cry and cry like an idiot. Buckets of tears even though I know I’m being manipulated and it’s all probably staged. Still, I can’t pass by Long Lost Family. It’s a show on TLC about adoptees looking for their natural birth parents. I watch and cry every time. At least when I couldn’t pass by I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant there was all the laughs.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. This show is so terrible, but I like Flash and I like Arrow, and all three are so terribly interconnected I don’t want to skip one.
I’ll second DC’c Legends of Tomorrow. I keep watching it and hoping it will get better but even if it doesn’t I’ll probably still watch it.
There’s a TV game show here called ‘Deal or No Deal.’ I can’t stand it but once I start watching an episode, I have to know how it ends. Thankfully I haven’t seen an episode for a long time.
The Last Man on Earth. I feel like I’m torturing myself but I can’t stop watching it. It’s SO BAD, and I don’t recall ever laughing once, but I still watch every episode.
Stitchers. It’s trying so hard to be a CW sciencey-fictiony show, but hasn’t got a clue what it’s doing. It’s the worst parts of Scorpion mixed with the worst parts of NCIS:LA. And that’s baaaaaaaad! And yet I feel compelled to watch the stupid thing.
That was Under the Dome for me. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and tapped out in season two. I’m not even sure why I had decided that I needed to make it through to the end, but it was probably a “F%$# you, show - you’re not going to break me!” feeling.
It wasn’t even a hate watch, which can be enjoyable in an MST3K kind of way. It was just pure, unadulterated rage. And contempt. And more rage.
The Today Show. I put on the tv in the morning to watch the local news and weather, on NBC, and see bits of the Today Show. It’s the equivalent of a People magazine now, or maybe a tabloid. Everyone seems so…forced, so jolly, laughing together uproariously. And they do dumb things like read ‘tweets’: “PSLD49 says Emily NoName is hilarious in ‘The Hot Girl’, Angelvibe3 says the San Remo cafe rocks on Sunday mornings”. And god help us, along comes Hoda and Kathy Lee at 9 a.m. for even more silliness, but they’re ok, often amusing… I used to enjoy it a lot more when Katy Couric, Matt Lauer, and Al Roker were the core, and the show wasn’t so loud, silly and dumbed down. I don’t hate it, exactly, but it’s annoying. I will look at it, though, because otherwise I wouldn’t even know that Emily NoName is famous, or ever hear any semi-current bands and singers.
That’s sort of how I feel about watching home shopping channels; especially when they’re selling jewelry. It’s almost always nothing I’d ever want to own but there’s something . . . mesmerizing about those show hosts with their tacky French manicures and fake enthusiasm. They get to caressing the rhodolite and diamochrome earrings and I’m like a magpie.
The houses rarely look like a place I’d want to live in, or like something available in my vicinity. Some of this may be a matter of shows being shown in a randomized order, but you can have an episode where in the first house they rip off “this horrible white tile counter top” and in the next they “put in some beautiful white tile counter top which will make the room look so much lighter”. All I can say in my defense is that I’m a sucker for a guy with a good toolbox… (literally. Get your mind out of the gutter!)
Oh, that has been my favorite hate for a long time. Even the “hard news” first twenty minutes is only barely bearable anymore - I really don’t need “smiley face” or “frowny face” to tell me what my reaction to the news should be.
Legends of Tomorrow - there’s so many reasons to hate the show, but the hate is more of a MST3K culture. It’s so bad, it’s entertaining to snark about it.
Kung Fu movies - every movie uses the same sound and visual effect package. The sound track is wiped out and replaced with robotic, unimaginative noises. Every sword hit is the same CLANG. Every stick hit is the same knock. Every wound is a spill of red tempura paint. Every outdoor scene uses the same prop trees. But I can’t stop watching.
My wife still puts on Quantico and I make decisions to not leave the room, I am therefore responsible for the garbage I have to listen too again and again.