| Dollar Short: 5 Reasons Why TV Sucks |
| Thursday, 04 October 2007 | |
 So I'm a day late. I was going to post a review of Tuesday night's episode of Reaper, as well as give my thoughts on the new "improved" version of Cavemen (sarcasm), but after seeing the Nielson Ratings for Tuesday night, I decided to change topics. Why? Well, you see: I love television. I really do. I grew up a TV baby, and I honestly can't remember a point in my life that I wasn't watching at least one show religiously. Maybe it was the Thundercats, maybe it was Double Dare, maybe it was Buffy the Vampire Slayer (maybe that was just a phase). Regardless, TV is a part of my life. But... (he says with a dramatic Shatner-esque pause)... TV Sucks. We all know it does. Has there ever been a time when you wondered to yourself "Why the hell am I watching this"? If you've never done that, well... you're reason #5. #5: The Audience ...and now I've insulted every single TV Viewer right at the very beginning. Way to go, Me! But let me be clear here: I'm only singling out the stupid ones. The dumb huddled masses who lower their fat nasty carcasses into their couches and chairs each night and laugh themselves hysterical watching reruns of Will and Grace. Or maybe, if they're Republican and far too haughty to watch anything with reversed gender roles, maybe they get their TV Hard Ons from listening to Bill O'Reilly (splotchy blowhard that he is) recite this weeks official "script o' spin" from the powers that be. What I'm saying here is that there are millions of people out there and they're all sheep. Wow, I'm on a roll here. Now I'm going to get hate mail from overweight people and Republicans (it's This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , coincidentally). Must... continue... regardless... This is where the blame really lies. As flawed as the system is, as bad as TV shows get, the American TV audience is what keeps the constant recycling of television garbage going. They will literally watch anything (well, as long as it's got women with big boobs, explosions, and/or smarmy single people in it). Advertising departments tell them what to watch and they, like the good little pupples they are, salivate on cue. TV Studios make bad TV, The Audience watches bad TV, bad TV gets huge ratings and makes sweet sweet advertising money, TV Studio makes more bad TV to make more money, The Audience watches more bad TV... Rinse. Repeat. It's time to break the cycle. #4: The Cliché ...also known as "MoneyMakers". There is absolutely no market in current television for innovation. Innovation means risk. Risk that maybe "The Audience" won't like the show, which means no ratings, which means no advertising money, which means lots and lots of rich TV producers start bitching because now they can't afford that beach house they've been looking at. That's why most studios won't gamble on any plot formula that hasn't already been proven to work. Of course, when a show does come along and think outside the box (ala Heroes or Lost), it's always labeled "the surprise hit of the season". Then, the very next year you get copies of that formula. So screw innovation, they say. Give us a show about a the foibles of married life! Give us a show about a total geek that somehow gets lumped in with an incredibly hot woman! Give us another sitcom about twenty-something or thirty-something singles and the pitfalls of dating! I want Nascar, they yell! I want Teen Drama, they scream! Give us jabbering hipsters wearing the latest fashions and talking about all the current buzzwords! iPhone it up! Talk about the "interwebs"! And so on and so on... How many times have we seen the exact same characters in the exact same situations? Sitcoms depend on this. And what's worse is that you're trained to recognize these clichés but to totally ignore them. You know, in any sitcom about a group of singles, that one of the male leads is secretly in love with one of the female leads. You also know that they won't hook up for at least a season or two. You also also know that they'll probably break up again over something stupid because the writers are out of ideas that week. But yet you watch anyway. Now, this is where I praise shows that manage to break out of the mold. The American version of The Office, for instance. We've all known since day one that Jim and Pam were going to get together somehow. Even through all of twists and turns, we all knew that Jim would stay (or return) to Scranton because at it's core, the show revolved around these two people hooking up. ...or so we thought. Instead of going the route of the lame sitcom, The Office barely even acknowledged the new couple in the season premiere. We find out they're dating, we see them together, but the show continues on and focuses on (big shocker here) "the office". We don't get any "behind the scenes" look at their romantic life. We don't see them on their first date. And why? Because the show isn't called "Jim and Pam Get it On", just like Friends wasn't called "Ross and Rachel: Awkward Dating 101" (even though at times it should have been). So way to go, The Office. That's how you sidestep a potential landmine. Hopefully they continue this tactic and relationships outside of the office are left out of The Office. That is way to many mentions of "the office". Moving on... #3: The Studios Television used to be about entertainment. It used to be about beaming a signal into peoples homes each night and bringing a little happiness and escapism to their mundane lives. Now, it's about exactly one thing: Selling those mundane people as much crap as humanly possible. Oh sure, there's still an element of entertainment to television. The Studios still need to make sure you're paying attention when they hit you with their advertising barrage. A stationary target is an easy target. The more of "The Audience" that watches a show, the more ads they see, the more money the studio makes. "But wait!" you say, "What about TV shows with "limited commercial interruption"? Have you ever noticed that whenever a show is presented "with limited commercial interruptions" it's always a sure-fire ratings winner? Maybe it's the premiere of a hot new TV show, maybe it's the television premiere of the most recent blockbuster movie, but whatever it is, it's going to get watched by a whole lot of people. Even more importantly, the "limited" commercials are almost always for one single product or company. I'll give you a tip: Companies pay a whole cubic f**kton for those shows. A company will drop an entire yearly budget worth of cash just to edge out every other company for that hour. Sure, there's only one commercial each break, but it's usually a long commercial (most are 30 sec spots) and you won't see any other product for an entire hour. Not to mention the show is always hyped with something along the lines of "The Heroes Season Premiere... brought to you with limited commercial interruptions by [insert car company here]". The Studios insistance on putting money before quality is what is slowly dumbing down the medium. #2: The Creators Shame on you, Television Creators! You're supposed to be the great artists of our generation. You're supposed to create shows that inspire, shows that lift the burden of everyday life off of our shoulders and elevate our minds. Instead, you're spewing out recycled garbage faster than Anna Nicole Smith at an open bar. (What, too soon?) I know you like your jobs. It's a cool thing to be the creator of a hit show, and I'm sure you enjoy the perks: the free pass into the hot clubs, the limo sex orgies, all the cocaine you can snort into that little cashcow nose of yours. But do me a favor: after your new show "Emo Teen Drama with Hot New Actors who live in a Cool City and Do Cool Stuff" earns you an entrance into the industry, spend all your time making sure that your next show actually raises the bar a little. Just a little. You'll be surprised what can happen if every tries to make better TV. Too hard? Well how about this: if you decide to follow up your first show with your brand new project entitled "Glossy Semi-Scripted Reality Show about Hot Emo Teen Actors in a Cool City doing Cool Stuff" ... throw yourself in a fire. #1: The Ratings System Worse than the Cocaine-Snorting Creators, worse than the MoneySucking Studios, worse than all the Cliches in the world and the Audiences that eat them up like brightly colored candy they bought at Walmart, the number 1 reason television sucks is because of the Ratings System. First created by Adolf Hitler and a team of occult scientists during the second World War, and later crudely duplicated by a mentally handicapped lefthanded Satanist named Arthur Nielsen, this arcane system of popularity measurement determines with extreme prejudice whether a television show lives or dies. Operated by Nielsen Media Research, the Nielson Ratings System takes exactly one thing into account: How many easily-influenced people watch a show and would spend money on products advertised during it. That's it. Not how good the show is, not how well it's written, or whether it rivals the greatest of cinematic classics, its sole purpose is measure how much of The Audience a show can deliver to it's advertisers. Oddly enough, Nielsen Media Research owns such companies as The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. That's right, a company that singlehandedly decides which shows succeed and which shows fail also owns the magazines that tell you, the Audience, which shows are going to be cool and which shows won't. Nielson Media Reseach is in turn owned by a congolmeration of companies, such as Blackstone Group (who have their fingers in Universal Studios and Hilton Hotels) and the ever infamous Carlyle Group (who own dozens of companies and have rather unsavory ties to various politicians, including a certain current president). These people and companies decide what you watch, what you like, what you don't, and then they use their other companies to make sure that you want to buy what they want you to buy. They get you coming and going. This is the same system that cancelled Arrested Development, even after it won an entire room full of shiny awards from pretty much every organization that gives out awards. This is the same system that cancelled Firefly, a show so innovative and unique in the science fiction landscape that it could have been the next Star Trek. More recently, this is the same system that is recommending that Cavemen, the abyssmal pile of sugary crap that it is, be picked up for more episodes while Reaper, a show so good that Kevin Smith himself said "I had to double-check the front cover to make sure I hadn't actually written it myself" is being considered for the chopping block. Apparently, Cavemen recieved an estimated 9 MILLION VIEWERS on Tuesday night. Really? WTF, people? Who are you and why are you watching crap TV? According to Adweek, not even ABC expected the show to pull those numbers:
Meanwhile, Reaper got less viewers than a Univision Telenovela. We're all doomed. Peter Sorensen is a part time reviewer and is going to get hatemail for this. Thoughts? Opinions? Want to tell me where I can stick it? Post a comment below! Comments (4)
  Peter wrote...
Yeah, I know. It's a "5 Reasons" article, which is the website equivalent of adding a lens flare to an image, but I really felt like saying something.
Hopefully, the Caveman numbers are just due to morbid curiosity. If the universe has any kind of justice, next week no one will bother watching it and they'll all flip over to Reaper.
http://www.bleepinggeek.com || October 04, 2007
 Ataraxic wrote...
I love this quote by Edward R. Murrow from "Good Night, and Good Luck":
"To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box." Obviously, it is debatable as to what constitutes "inspiration" and how one can differentiate that from "insulation", but I agree with you, Peter. When watching a show like Lost, Dexter, The Office, etc., I marvel at the craft, sophistication, and genius of the entire production. But, it does seem like an unfortunate amount of "insulation" is being spoon-fed to the general public. (I'm not talking about the fluffy pink garbage that keeps you warm, but kills you if you're around it too long...although if you can find a better anology for the effect these crap TV programs have, I'm all ears.) Even more sadly, the general populace is ingesting it like its cotton candy. *smacks forehead* STUPID!
|| October 06, 2007
 Peter wrote...
I'll see your quote and raise, ataraxic!
It comes from one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and insightful look at the deep inner workings of television and the human condition. Yes, I'm talking about "UHF" starring the incomparable Weird Al Yankovic. :D And I think we can all relate when the everyman hero George Newman says these crushing words: "Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs... ...all next week on Town Talk. "
http://www.bleepinggeek.com || October 07, 2007
 Slap Happy wrote...
What can I say? George Newman knows how to put on an important, thought-provoking show that brings peoples attentions to those things that really matter most in life. I know I watched that episode, didn't you? Didn't we all? And who among us can say we were aware of these important issues before George "Uncle Nutzy" Newman enlightened us? No one. Shame on us for watching shows that are "insulating". ;)
|| October 08, 2007
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