While reading a thread on the lameness of the History Channel, I thought “yeah but at least it hasn’t fallen as fast as A&E”. Back in the early 90’s it used to have such great programs–Monty Python and Blackadder, classic MGM musicals, sixties cult films like “Alice’s Restaurant”, all the Woody Allen movies. Where else was a preteen in a podunk small town going to see “Swimming to Cambodia” or an excellent mid-60s CBS series on WWI? It did an amazing job opening my eyes to what entertainment could be. Now all it shows is tripe like “Intervention” and those Criss Angel shows. Can anyone name a network that’s tanked worse?
NBC. From Seinfeld/Friends/ER to Jay Leno taking up 5 hours of primetime a week.
Name a network that hasn’t fallen through its ass.
HBO is shit since the Sopranos, and all we watch these days is Flight of the Conchords. The In Treatment series was okay, but it’s on a break.
AMC is 80% commercials. I wouldn’t watch a movie there for any reason.
Bravo has gone to hell for me.
Even ESPN with all the poker is boring.
Too much competition is forcing these guys to go for anything that will attract the teeny-bopper and slacker crowds.
We DVR every show we watch so we can zip through the commercials and that means we get to see roughly 20 minutes of actual show per 30 minute segment, more if it’s a basic cable channel. The fact that channels depend on commercials for survival means we’re cutting our own throats, but as long as we can short-circuit the boring shit we will.
Fox has screwed the pooch with American Idol as far as I’m concerned. Sadly enough, they’re the only network with any really good shows and even they are getting weaker by the week.
The DuMont network, easy.
TLC went from the being “The Learning Channel” - showing cool programs like Junkyard Wars as recently as 2004 - to just “TLC” showing whatever crap they’re showing now.
TVLand and Nick At Nite. They took awhile to go down, but once they started on their downhill path they fell quickly
True though that is, AMC justifies its exisence with Mad Men. It’s kind of like why Gotham City puts up with Batman.
No hate for MTV?
Its fall wasn’t fast. But after seeing that show about the pseudo-incestuous bisexual blonde stripper twins looking for orgy partners, I would wager its fall is both complete and irreversible.
AMC also has Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad is Robin. Which is weird, I know, given that it came first, but I’ve never claimed my similes made sense.
The SciFi Channel. I mean they currently show wrestling on the SciFi Channel. What the hell does wrestling have to do with science fiction?
I’m not sure what you mean. Breaking Bad came on the air after Mad Men’s first season ended.
Don’t bother me with facts.
Okay, so I had the sequence wrong. So the simile which I thought was nonsensical actually made sense, and my dismissal of said simile was in fact nonsensical. That proves nothing.
Yeah, but wrestling makes up a pretty small percentage of the line-up. The rest is all sci-fi.
I’m gonna throw in my vote for TLC. It went from being a more educational Discovery Channel to HGTV-lite.
At last, I have found someone who watches this show! My friends and I were all searching for someone who likes it and I was beginning to think I was looking for a wily leprechaun.
I tried watching a couple of episodes and I couldn’t begin to stomach it. Different strokes and all that, but I’m just excited to be able to report back that I found someone!
Seriously? I don’t care for Flight of the Conchords, but they seem pretty big with a number of online friends and acquaintances.
Flight of the choncords is pretty damn popular…
Like I mentioned, I’d yet to find someone who actually admitted liking the show. It became a bit of a joke with my friends and I to try to find someone who liked it. I’m a nurse, one friend is a hair stylist, and one is a teacher and we’d all ask our co-workers, patients, clients, students, etc whenever the subject of TV came up and never found a soul. Now I have.
So, pretty damned popular it might be… this is the first time for me.
If it’s any help in explaining our appreciation for this show, it dates back to when we saw them in a half-hour (may have been an hour) special on some network, probably HBO. Their “two guys sitting on stools playing folky music and cracking wise in a weird New Zealandish accent about all sorts of Gary Larson or Steven Wright or Emo Phillips situations” bits were mesmerizing in much the same fresh way that Demitri Martin is working these days. A new wrinkle. And they’re physically charming with Jemaine’s Maori heritage and Bret’s pretty-boy-but-bent sort of look.
The series itself adds to their basic on-stage appeal with the zany characters, situations, music and camera work to provide a belly laugh a minute for us. Our being in our 60’s may further explain why they’re more fun to watch than the shows the major networks are putting forward.
What’s odd to me is that HBO has a big enough audience to keep the show going. It just must be its time.
Hope that helps. If not, maybe if you point out why you think nobody likes it, I could say what about your objection(s) appeals to me.
BTW, I saw last night that In Treatment will be back with new material in April. That way we can justify keeping HBO.