Hey, Elephant Poo is just fine by me.
You do realize that a TV executive will read this as “No, don’t stop. Please.” And your wish will be answered with even more primetime game shows.
Just a side point, but the reason for the upswing in ‘reality’ shows and gameshows was a preemptive strike by the network to reduce any pain should writers go on strike or get locked out. At least that was the rationale, I think that the writers union is no longer in a threat of going off the job. Now, shows without a cast or writers are just cheaper to produce.
Have you seen the Osbournes? The only show on now, besides the X-Files that is an “appointment show” for me.
My faith has been restored that this genre can work if handled the right way.
Amen to that.
If they bring back RDJ for the last ep I just might watch.
I agree with all of you, even those who posted while I was composing this magnum opus.
[aside] auntie em, that’s some funny stuff! [/aside]
To continue Atreyus comments on the state of local news, I absolutely hate those little blurbs at the end of each and every ‘segment’ that go something like this: “stay tuned for our next segment, where we’ll tell you about the 5 people found dead in McMinnville…” then when they finally do get to the ‘story’, usually 3 or 4 segments later, it’ll be a 10 second gloss piece that doesn’t tell me much more than I gleaned from the teaser. In my previous example, all they added were the names of the 5 people. I got the actual details from the newspaper.
Another thing the newsies around here like to do is ask stupid questions of the grieving family members like: "How did you feel watching your 3 year-old child with cerebral palsy being devoured before your very eyes by feral chipmunks? " Leave those poor people alone already!
Other annoying trends:
Copying (badly) British TV shows.
Moving, or worse, pre-empting, a popular show to debut their latest turkey in it’s time slot.
Sitcoms with Black casts where all the males are buffoons or ‘players’, and all the females have ‘attitudes’. I think they promote some unfortunate stereotypes.
Oh my God. I didn’t look at your location before reading your post, and when I read this, I instantly thought of my own ABC affiliate, which is in the same situation, and grumbled my own annoyance (Oh my God! Two helicopters? Who cares?!). When I looked over and saw that we’ve been watching the same ABC affiliate, I about died with laughter.
They are, but right now the peacock has a 75 under it, as NBC is celebrating its 75th anniversary.
I’m just glad its not waving-flag color anymore.
I believe it’s diagesis, but in any case it’s a good word and more people should use it. And I agree completely. Discovery Channel is perhaps the worst offender, with their animated dinosaurs promoting their animated dinosaur shows. “Down in front!”
I’m going to gripe in advance about a trend that will emerge shortly: Real-time drama. “24” proved it can work. I suppose “Watching Ellie” is doing it, though in a more Aristotlean “unity of time & place” sense (I’ve never seen it, so I don’t know). But as this thread proves, gimmicks should not be driven into the ground because it makes me crazy.
Ha! Good one TheeGrumpy! I can totally see this happening. I wonder what other trends will emerge? Remember the talk show craze?
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TV shows where the actors playing kids are 35.
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John Madden
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World’s Wildest Police Videos
Admittedly, I have what is definitely a boring line of work. But, I walk in, I do my job, I go home. Occasionally, I stay late and work harder. I interact with my co-workers…maybe, maybe for the course of my job an occasional person out of the office once every couple of months. But that’s it. 90% of my job is completely repetitive, and the rest is not really that unexpected.
Doctor/Lawyer/Cop shows partially work because the jobs as they are depicted on the screen allow the characters to meet and talk to new people every week. There’s a pattern to the show (someone is sick, they get healed or die. someone commits a crime, it is solved) but within the pattern there’s some variety (different crimes/disease of the week), so the conversations are different enough (they wouldn’t be for my job). The professions lend themselves to 22 episodes/year. Plus, everyone knows and understands on a general level what a cop/lawyer/doctor does. That simply is not true of every profession out there. And there’s some level of excitement possible. Blood squirting everywhere, gunfights, courtroom outbursts are simply more dramatic than a column failing to add up and Mr. Smith owing the IRS 234.53 instead of 134.53.
Another news gripe – when the leader is some extremely dramatic BS, like “Stay tuned to find out WHAT IS IN YOUR BATHROOM THAT COULD KILL YOU” especially when they hype it up even more so that this mysterious bathroom substance isn’t killing YOU, but rather cute innocent puppies and orphans. It usually turns out to be something that no sane person doesn’t already know, like “don’t drink bleach” (which is hardly “news” anyway).
I also hate animated shows that are aimed at an adult audience that have no redeeming qualities other than being animated. Someone didn’t get the memo; good animated shows, in addition to being animated, need to have things like interesting characters, humor, good dialogue, etc.
And someone tell me again why we need five thousand and one televised award shows?
I can answer the award show question delphica. It is a totally sweet deal for the networks. People tune in to watch these shows because of the celebrities attending. That beauty is, you don’t have to pay the celebrities! You get 100 stars for the price of none!
I hate to see a good assumption go to waste, adam.
MASH*
ummm… yeahh… mentioned World’s Wildest Police Videos. I have to admit I enjoy watching those. Yes, they are just cheap thrills (and the narrating is humorously bad), but few things are as interesting as seeing a guy drive a Mack truck squarely into a tree. One of the best ones I’ve seen didn’t involve a car chase. It was a security camera video of a buffoon who manages to trash an entire store while trying to steal the money out of the register, because the cash drawer is locked and the register is chained to the counter. It’s unbelievable.
-Andrew L
No way. “MAS*H” characters weren’t “quirky.”
Hawkeye? Not quirky at all.
Trapper and BJ were the soul of normality, as long as you count “really funny” as “normal.”
Hot Lips wasn’t a bit quirky.
Henry Blake, Charles Winchester, Frank Burns… All virtually real, with actual emotions. Sure, Burns was a little over-the-top goofy at the end there, but he wasn’t quirky.
Radar? Nope.
Father Mulcahy? No way.
Potter? Only if you count the horse as a quirk, but that was well explained by his past as a cavalryman (and yes, there were old horse cavalrymen who still kept horses even forty years after the Cav stopped using them).
Klinger? Maybe, but it was so well established that he was putting it all on that you can’t call him “quirky” in the sense of the characters on Ally McBeal, whose strange behavior went completely unexplained and was clearly just the result of the writers creating a character and saying, “And now, we’ll add a quirk from the Quirk Generator.”
Here’s one new trend I hate:
Rerunning a show in the same week. Hey, you liked it on Tuesday, you’ll love it on Thursday!
Prime-time game shows that have celebrities on them. Like the night the cast of “Passions” was on “The Weakest Link”. What the hell?
I’m also tired of family sitcoms where the dad is the central focus of the show. This is SO old.
The proliferation of shows like 20/20, Dateline, and 48 Hours. I love these types of shows, but do we really need so many of them?
Papermache Prince, bite your tongue! My subjects depend heavily on this new trend!
(Sig given again for help demystifying inside joke.)