Re: Average TV viewer not very intelligent


Steven L. wrote:
WQ wrote:

shawn wrote:

--- Going by just one season for me, 73-74, there were 21 hours that I
could fill up in the course of a week [it was only 21 hours that
season, not 22]:

Toma, Kung Fu, Streets of San Francisco, Police Story, The Magician,
Kojak, All in the Family, Maude, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart,
Carol Burnett, Sanford and Son, The Odd Couple, Adam's Rib, Calucci's
Dept., Needles and Pins, Diana, The Waltons, Hawaii 5-0 [its only
really good season], Mystery Movie [Banacek, Columbo], at least one TV
Movie of the Week out of four that aired, at least one theatrical film
out of usually five that aired, and whatever number of specials and/or
news documentaries that aired to round things out.

Those were all shows I watched either weekly or as often as I could,
the only problem being that I didn't have a VCR to record one and watch
the other so as to watch all of them each and every week. But it all
still filled up a full week of prime-time for me if you put all the
shows together end to end. Today, the only show I really want to watch
won't be back till March, Prison Break. Quite a difference 30+ years
make.

Hmm, "Arrested Development", "Desperate Housewives", and even
"Charmed" seem to fit some of the categories you mention. They may not
be to your taste, but they do fit your categories.

--- Yes, not to my taste is right. Why did it used to be to my taste?
What is it that the 60s and 70s knew and got that this double-0 decade
is just totally missing out on?

Well, judging by the list of shows you say you really enjoyed, you had
pretty eclectic tastes. You listed cop procedural shows, cop mystery
shows, variety shows, sitcoms, feel-good family dramas, documentaries,
news specials, and a major motion picture being broadcast by a network.

--- I simply gravitated to anything that worked, regardless of genre.
I still do, but very little of a lot that's on hardly works at all now.


First of all, let's remove the documentaries and news specials and
movies from the discussion. There's absolutely no reason for the three
networks to do them anymore because they can't compete with CNN, Fox
News, History Channel, HBO and Cinemax, prerecorded DVDs and videotapes.
Turning the News Divisions of the three broadcast networks into profit
centers (a change satirized in the 1975 movie "Network") made them
uneconomic compared with the Entertainment Divisions. CBS News is
gonzo. It's not coming back. That's that. So if you want that stuff,
it's all still there but now it's on cable/satellite/Internet. Thanx to
HBO and Cinemax, we have far more choices of movies to watch on TV than
we did decades ago. And today, we can watch those movies uncut and
unedited and without commercial interruption--something that was
absolutely nonexistent on the three major networks.

--- Yeah, but if you're going to replace all that stuff that used to be
on the Big 3 with anything, you'd think it'd be with more hysterical
sitcoms and more exciting action shows and more rivetting dramas
instead of moronic reality shows, moronic reliance on excessive repeats
and just plain moronic sitcoms, action and dramas series that often
look like they've been written by high schoolers.

So let's talk only about entertainment shows. I watched some of those
same types of shows as you. But I didn't enjoy them as much as you say
you did. I watched them because they were the "lesser of 3 evils". The
only two cop shows I liked and looked forward to each week were Dragnet
and Hawaii Five-O. For variety shows, I liked Carol Burnett but not
Dean Martin or The Smothers Brothers, and I was too "square" to
appreciate Laugh-In. I liked All in the Family but not any of Norman
Lear's other sitcoms.

And you fudged a little bit compared to what I was discussing, by
listing shows from the 1970's, when TV comedy was becoming more
groundbreaking and sophisticated (thank you, Norman Lear and Larry
Gelbart). I grew up in the 1950's and 1960's, before that sea-change.
The most sophisticated sitcom of the 1960's I remember was the *** Van
Dyke Show (which I did enjoy). You don't really think Mister Ed or
Gilligan's Island are as deserving of respect as All in the Family, do you?

--- Well, if you want me to pick 60s stuff, I'll do that too. And it's
not whether Mister Ed or Gilligan's Island is deserving of respect as
much as All in the Family, but each show does have its pros and cons.
For example, All in the Family today doesn't play as well because of
its dated topicality, so a bit of its humor gets lost on younger
viewers, the punch to some of the jokes just isn't there for them in
the way they were there for me and you. On the other hand, Gilligan's
Island's humor is more universal and timeless. I introduced the series
to my 12-year-old niece last year and she and I cracked up on the same
stupid jokes; and even though I had seen those same episodes 40 years
earlier, I still cracked up, the jokes were so stupid but funny. It's
because the caricatures of the characters made the jokes work. My
niece even remarked that she thought the "old shows were funnier" than
the current ones. Well, if you look at the current ones that they have
to watch, sure the old ones were funnier. So no, you can't fairly
measure All in the Family and Gilligan's Island side by side, that
would be like comparing Shakespeare with Stephen King. But if the
premise and the execution of that premise works for what the show is or
is supposed to be about, then that's all that counts in giving it a
thumbs up.

I just didn't watch 22 hours of TV Monday thru Friday like you did.
There were a few shows I really looked forward to, like Carol Burnett
and Mission: Impossible (which was on Sunday nights). The rest I
watched in lieu of something more interesting to do.

--- It would've been 22 hours end to end if they had programmed all my
favorites that way for me, but without a VCR back then I sometimes had
to pick and choose and often would alternate between choices. It was
quite frustrating at times, so as a result I would only log about 15-18
actual hours each week, but with the alternate views it usually all
added up to 20-25 hours per week..

--- It seems to get worse with each passing year. I recall how even in
the 60s and 70s programmers and execs of all stripes would gripe about
the content of one show or another, but somehow the producers managed
to still pull it off more often than not. Just witness the likes of
Smothers Brothers [till it finally got killed by the net], Laugh-in,
All in the Family, NBC not wanting to have Jeannie expose her navel, an
episode of The Prisoner never having aired on CBS in the original run
due to some absurd network thinking that it was considered anti-Vietnam
[it was a mock Western, for cripe's sake!], and NBC again not agreeing
to a deemed offensive skit on Richard Pryor's show resulting in his
quitting. But yeah, that all sounds like peanuts compared to the
endless bureaucracy that producers now have to plow through, and
usually to only get their show cancelled on the third airing if they
managed to succeed at getting that far.

FYI, there is far more adult content on TV today than there was back
then. Back then, networks may have been nervous about appearing too
antiwar or depicting sex too explicitly. But that clearly isn't the
case anymore. If anything, they've gone too far in the opposite
direction: There is less and less prime-time TV suitable for family
viewing unless the kids are already teenagers. And odd antiwar and
anti-Bush comments are routinely embedded into shows like Boston Legal
(infuriating Republicans).

--- More adult content doesn't necessarily equate to more entertaining
content. Sure, if you watch any Law & Order episode, it can be adult
and relevant and topical and intelligent and all that, but bottom line,
it bores me. The subject matter can be awfully depressing at times and
all expounded upon in too preachy a manner to the point of actually
feeling the hammer being banged on my head. That's not entertainment,
that's someone's agenda. It's not about what's more adult and what
isn't for me, it's about what works and what doesn't. For example, I
despise reality shows, but I found two that I enjoyed watching because
they really worked at being entertaining, the first season of The
Simple Life and Joe Millionaire. But I couldn't watch the second
season of either because something happened in the process that just
didn't work for either series in the next go-round. I'm not one to
watch each and every episode of a series that starts off great but
drives deeper into the ground as the seasons wear on. I give up as
soon as I smell a stinker. I gave up after episode 2 of Alias, I gave
up after the first 5 minutes of Lost. I don't waste time on stuff that
just doesn't work, unlike some viewers who will carry some shows to
their grave. But I guess that's just me - a little too sane for my own
good, I suppose.

--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email: sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

.