The new television season
It’s that time of year again. The networks roll out their latest offerings, hoping that some will be mega-hits and scoop up those all-important advertising dollars. Most of the shows are destined for oblivion, many deservedly so. C’mon – how many cop/doctor/lawyer dramas can we endure? I gave up watching sitcoms years ago. I suspect their target market is people with the IQ of houseplants. No, that’s not quite right. Their target market is people who can be out-witted by common houseplants.
I’m not a “PBS-only” snob. I have my low-brow tastes too, like a strange fascination with South Park and even some cooking shows. Watching the Food Network makes me hungry. But there’s a cookie-cutter sameness to most of the stuff on the networks. Even the Howard Stern show is basically the same tasteless crap time after time, but it’s made Stern rich. Maybe it’s true that you can never misunderestimate the taste of the American people.
(MS Word does not like the word ‘misunderestimate’. Imagine that!)
Last year, Thursday evening in our house was cycling night. OLN ran two hours of cycling coverage and I seldom missed it. They’ve gone back to the hook and bullet shows, and cycling coverage has been scarce.
So what’s a fan to do?
We could petition the networks for some niche programming, say a doctor-as-a-triathlete show? Or how about an itinerant-mystical-bicycle-mechanic-who-shows-the-true-importance-of-non-violence-while-kicking-the-crap-out-of-the-bad-guys? Or we could have cops on bikes, fighting crime and…oh, wait; we’ve already done that.
See? It’s hard to come up with good, original ideas. That explains the blatant rip-offs of a successful show.
How about a-bunch-of-zany-bike-messengers-who-moonlight-as-private-eyes?
On second thought, maybe I’ll just stick with things like “The History of Beer”!
I’m not a “PBS-only” snob. I have my low-brow tastes too, like a strange fascination with South Park and even some cooking shows. Watching the Food Network makes me hungry. But there’s a cookie-cutter sameness to most of the stuff on the networks. Even the Howard Stern show is basically the same tasteless crap time after time, but it’s made Stern rich. Maybe it’s true that you can never misunderestimate the taste of the American people.
(MS Word does not like the word ‘misunderestimate’. Imagine that!)
Last year, Thursday evening in our house was cycling night. OLN ran two hours of cycling coverage and I seldom missed it. They’ve gone back to the hook and bullet shows, and cycling coverage has been scarce.
So what’s a fan to do?
We could petition the networks for some niche programming, say a doctor-as-a-triathlete show? Or how about an itinerant-mystical-bicycle-mechanic-who-shows-the-true-importance-of-non-violence-while-kicking-the-crap-out-of-the-bad-guys? Or we could have cops on bikes, fighting crime and…oh, wait; we’ve already done that.
See? It’s hard to come up with good, original ideas. That explains the blatant rip-offs of a successful show.
How about a-bunch-of-zany-bike-messengers-who-moonlight-as-private-eyes?
On second thought, maybe I’ll just stick with things like “The History of Beer”!
posted by Ed W at 7:49 PM
3 Comments:
It wasn't a TV show but a movie, but my all-time favorite cycling related movie was "Prince of Darkness." Alice Cooper plays a demon-possessed homeless guy who stabs people to death -- with a bicycle! I'm serious, he jabs the *front* (not the end) of the headtube into people until they die. A classic!
I ain't much for TV either. I watch the car and choppers shows on Discovery and TLC. The Food network is ok as well, Rachael Ray is pretty cute :-)
I pretty much stopped watching TV 4 years ago. One of the best things I've done.
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