Well, I don’t watch TV, but… For me it’s a matter of time and energy. My schedule has been so packed and screwy for the last 20 years that I just stopped watching with any regularity. (And, unfortunately, I also lost the time/energy for good books… sigh I never thought I’d become a non-reader.)
That said, if I do catch episodes of current TV shows, I find that the quality of the shows overall seems to be far higher than “good” TV from when I did have time to watch TV regularly. In pretty much any category: sitcoms, procedurals, dramas, animation, whatever. The quality stuff out there trounces pretty much anything I can remember.
It actually kind of pisses me off. I wish quality had gone down; I’d feel like I’m not missing anything. It’s even caused problems in relationships. My last girlfriend was desperate to share some of her favorite shows with me, but at the time I was finishing two undergrad degrees, doing student teaching and research, as well as working full time overnights. The last thing I had time to do was to get involved in any kind of show that had continuity. We got to spend maybe 5 hours a weekend together, and I didn’t want to spend half of that watching stuff. She took it as disinterest (or, worse, disdain) for her interests, that I looked down on her for watching TV.
The above statement could have been made on any given day for the past 50+ years. Every generation thinks all TV sucks except, of course, for their few favorite shows.
If you look at some of the nostalgia channels and watch some of the older shows, you will find that a lot of supposed “great classics” have not aged well and are truly horrible. A few do seem timeless, but those are few and far between.
I would have to say TV has actually gotten far better. They have more freedom to include plots and characters and dialog that, quite simply, would have been banned from TV just a few years ago.
I will even go further to say current TV has done a lot for shaping social consciousness and awareness of issues that would normally not be familiar with many households. Some have even gone so far as to say the new trend in public opinion polls for acceptance of same-sex marriage is a direct result of portraying Gays and Lesbians as normal people on TV shows. There might be something to that - I can recall the days you seldom saw any racial minorities on TV. Then you started to get hit shows like Cosby or Chico and the Man and other (not so wonderful, but popular) shows with minority casts - and suddenly these minorities were in your homes and you were able to see they had the same issues and problems and everyday life situations as everyone else. And let’s give credit to All In The Family that brought a whole range of social and political issues into the American households as a number one hit series.
So yeah, I hate pretty much all reality shows and could get all grumpy and angry at idiots who care about Kardashians, City Housewives, Bachelors, Dancers, Boo Boo’s or whatever.
But then there are some damned good shows that have excellent writing and no-holds-barred content that are as gripping as any novel you can buy. Plus, technology has helped make a lot of these shows better with clever use of CGI or editing and sound that bring TV series to an entirely new level.
Plus, we now have hundreds of channels to choose from - and many of the smaller cable shows are creating their own original series. You have a huge selection of programming to chose from - unlike the horrible years when there were THREE major channels and that was that; plus horrible reception from poor quality TV’s with iffy connections on iffy antennas and no way to tape anything.
You think TV is bad now? What do you think the odds were of finding great TV series when there were only three shows being broadcast on the air at any given time? And godforbid there were suddenly TWO good shows airing at the same time - you were SOL and let the family arguments begin.
Those new-fangled inventions of “remote control” and “cable” and “DVR” and “Internet” have given you a wealth of choices to find shows you might never have had the opportunity to see - some crap, but others are little gems worth watching. If anything:
"TV is pretty damned good, and it’s only getting better!"
I had serious doubts that Major Crimes would make it. They basically lifted Kyra Sedgwick out and dropped in Mary McDonnell as the lead. Other than the loss of Lt. Gabriel, it was just the The Closer with a different female lead whose character was a hardass stickler for the rules and she wasn’t very likable!
But McDonnell is actually a great actress and I am surprised by how much Capt. Raydor has grown on me already! The whole Rusty sub-plot really helped to humanize her also. I’m looking forward to Season 2!
From the shows you listed, I watched Raising Hope from the very beginning because I adore Cloris Leachman. After the 1st season, it was unknown for quite a while whether it would be returning or not and I never started watching again when it did return.
I struggle with ADHD (Inattentive sub-type) and a new show typically has a limited window of opportunity to grab my interest. There probably are some shows that I would enjoy out there, but forcing myself to try them is always a challenge.
You also mentioned Psych, which I tried and just didn’t like. I really hoped that I could get into the Walking Dead, but I’ve tried twice so far and it hasn’t happened for me!
I am very excited about the new season of Arrested Development, one of my all time faves! In my original post, I forgot about Rizzoli and Isles, which I haven’t seen in quite a while but usually enjoy.
I had high hopes for CW superhero series ‘Arrow’ but after trying to digest two episodes, it just wasn’t happening. If they had used Green Arrow from Smallville, it would have been a much better show, IMO…
But as long as I have Supernatural, I think I’ll survive! I was so relieved that it was renewed for a ninth season along with a larger budget, which gives me hope for a 10th season and beyond!
I agree with the OP as far as regular network programming. While PBS still has interesting shows, the big three are a disappointing wasteland of reality shows and really stupid comedies, interspersed by shows like Law and Order (pick a town), which ceased to be interesting long ago. At this point there are zero programs that we watch on the three network TV channels. Cable: different story entirely, with some of the best programming to ever hit television. AMC, TNT and FX have hit it out of the park with some of their offerings. For my money, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Justified and Southland are worth the price of admission.
I must concede that television programs can have a profound impact on public opinion and have a real impact on critical social issues! As a gay man, I certainly appreciate the depiction of regular, average joe type men who just happen to love other men!
One of my all-time favorite shows is the British comedy “Absolutely Fabulous”. Last year, they released three new episodes and they were as hilarious and fresh as the original first series back in 1993! In the first of the three episodes, one of the main characters, Eddie (Edwina Monsoon, played by show creator Jennifer Saunders) was flipping thru a tabloid while sitting at the kitchen table with her daughter who had just been released from a two-year prison sentence. She held up a page to show her daughter and said, “There’s a new disease out now called the Kardashians!” It was priceless!!!
I have tried to watch Mad Men, but lose track of the story line instantly when Jon Hamm appears on the screen! I’ve always found him to be stunningly handsome, but now that we know that he is, um, ‘gifted’ far more than the average man, my mind goes right into the gutter when I see him…not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about what happens on that show…
Not really. Lets take some things that really suck. Getting robbed; getting a colonoscopy; getting lectured by the wife..on the true scale of suckatude, TV does not suck.
Actually, there is quite a bit of TV that is very good. There are just no shows that are universally accepted as being very good.
Any of you old to enough to remember when there was no cable? When you had a maximum of 3 first-run shows on ay any given time?
Remember when cable came started? Or when we got a 4th Network and all they showed was crap and The Simpsons?
All Networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, FOX, USA, FX, …) are putting out original programming. They are tailoring some to appeal to certain audiences and understanding that nothing is going to appeal to ALL audiences. There are soooo many choices. You just have to wade through the crap that wasn’t meant for you to find the good stuff that is meant for you.
I said I wouldn’t watch ‘reality’ shows with a gun to my head. And yet…I never miss ‘Bar Rescue’. I hate the ‘Murder, Murder, Murder’ of BIO, which I call ‘The Murder Channel’, but my GF loves it. I can watch the MLB and NFL on muliple channels.
20 years ago, a show like Archer would have never been aired. South Park paved the way. I got Robot Chicken, dammitt!!! This is a better world.
I watch Justified, Elementary, Castle, Game of thrones, The Walking Dead, Person of Interest, Archer, Key and Peele, The Daily Show, The Americans, Pardon the Interruption and as much Spring Training Baseball as my brain will allow!
I have no objection to people who don’t watch TV because they’re too busy doing something else. There are certainly a lot of things that are better than watching TV.
It’s the bragging I mind. I have no problem with somebody bragging that they’re doing volunteer work or learning a new language or starting up a business or writing a novel - these are doing things.
But bragging about not doing something? How does the simple act of not watching TV make you a better person? What if you’re spending a hundred hours of week sitting on a couch? You might as well turn on the TV - even watching Oprah and Judge Judy would be an improvement over just sitting there.
I point this out a lot, and I’m going to do it again here: TV has pretty much always sucked.
Think about it. For more than half of the existence of broadcast TV, there were basically only three channels, so at any given time, you really only had three choices, and people picked the one that, to them, sucked the least. Seriously, go on Netflix and catch an episode or two of Fantasy Island or Green Acres. Those shows are fucking terrible, even through the nostalgia lens, and these were long-running, hit shows.
I would say that there’s more good TV today than there has ever been, if only because there are now hundreds of channels and the TV execs have to get lucky every now and then.
I have no problem at all with misery, sex and violence, but I have very little tolerance for things that make me squirm in embarassment. I cannot watch **Curb Your Enthusiasm **for more than 5 minutes without besoming so uncomfortable I need a Xanax. The original Office was impossible: half the time the accents were too thick to watch without captions and when I could understand it, I was so embarrassed I would get a stomach ache. The US version was tolerable most of the time, but there were a few scenes so brutal I just had to fast forward through them.
??? Tell me! I only know of Revolution. What else? I LOVE post-apocalyptic stories!
I know. It’s funny, as I’m trying to get my friends to watch it (with tons of caveats, like “Give it 3-4 episodes at least…PAY ATTENTION…use captions…” part of the selling I give them, as people I turned on to BB, is that the general consensus among critics is that the greatest show of all time is a toss between the two. It’s very interesting, because they could not possibly be more different. One is about one man’s amazingly dark journey from one extreme to the other, and the other is about a whole city’s paralysis that never allows it to change at all. But both completely brilliant. I give it to BB because it is so comprehensively outstanding in every single aspect and detail, including things like cinematography, and because of the emotional engagement. Also Bryan Cranston’s performance should go down in history as one of the most outstanding in the history of screen acting. Seriously. Mind-blowing excellence.
But I don’t argue with those who pick The Wire. To me it’s kind of a Stones/Beatles thing…
I was amazed that an online poll (presumably heavily weighted to a younger generation therefore) of over a million people came up with I Love Lucy as the greatest television show of all time. Not that it sucked, it was indeed a classic in many ways and it is certainly the one show that every generation in the last 60 years has seen plenty of, but still… really?
While I think it is a combination of shows that have contributed, I think about 50% is directly traceable to Ellen DeGeneres. She is such a deeply good soul and it’s so obvious what a lovely human being she is, that any prejudice against homosexuality has to be affected by that, and I’m sure it has been. And to be familiar with her real life and marriage…it puts an exceptionally lovable face to something that many people would otherwise find very scary.
Can someone explain to me why Dancing With The Stars is so popular? I love So You Think You Can Dance, because those are real dancers who really know their shit and they are beautiful and thrilling to watch…but a bunch of B-level celebrities awkwardly stumbling around? Meh…
They still manage to make Sunday nights a struggle… there are points in the year when there are as many as 8 or 9 shows on Sunday nights that I want to record. Not all equally great, but fun enough that I’d like to see them. Thank goodness for cable’s habit of rerunning all week…
I had heard so much about the Closer and I’ve always like Sedgwick, but when I finally gave it a shot or two, her insane and obnoxious accent drove me off.
Plenty old enough, born in 1958 in Los Angeles. We had exactly 7 channels, only 3 network. Plus it used to take literally YEARS for movies to come to television. We did have one instant-repeat show: the Million Dollar Movie. They would play it every night for a week on channel 9.
I understand that it’s easy to lose interest in a show, but I just wanted to point out that this isn’t true. Raising Hope was renewed before its first season was even halfway finished.
For me it’s a matter of time and energy. My schedule has been so packed and screwy for the last 20 years that I just stopped watching with any regularity. (And, unfortunately, I also lost the time/energy for good books… sigh I never thought I’d become a non-reader.)