If I hadn’t gotten over my cold this weekend, I think I might have died. From boredom. Or too much TV. Or a combination of the two. I didn’t feel like reading (I know–what?). There was just something about holding a book that seemed much too difficult and energy-consuming. But I wasn’t quite sick enough to just pass out and sleep all day. So, stuck in the middle, I watched TV. Hours and hours of it. And when there wasn’t anything to watch on the actual television, I watched TV on the computer. I got caught up on the Daily Show and Bones. I watched The View. I watched the evening news every night, and then an hour of Entertainment Tonight, and then whatever came on Fox or ABC, the only two channels we get. American Idol. Lost (which doesn’t count as television, since it actually makes you smarter every time you watch it). Hell’s Kitchen. 20/20. Wife Swap.
One of the worst was Entertainment Tonight. Okay, as fascinating and important as Jessica Simpson’s weight gain is, was it really necessary to talk about it every single night for a week? And I am not even making that up or exaggerating for comedic effect. They literally had the same stories every night. I cannot tell you how disappointing it was that Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune come on a channel we don’t get.
But the absolute worst train wreck of a show was Wife Swap. I can never watch that show again. It stressed me out. I mean, it was physically stressful to watch that show. They picked a woman from a very small town in Missouri and a woman from San Francisco. Now, sounds interesting, right? The people they picked could not have been more stereotypical, which was annoying. I mean, if someone wrote these characters into a story and workshopped it in a creative writing class, we’d all laugh at how one-dimensional the characters were. The SF lady sent her kids to private school, and they ate all organic everything, and they were all about renewable this and that. The MO woman ate lots of junk food and her family liked paintball and weren’t much about college or health and fitness.
Basically, the entire show was each family insulting the person who had come to live with them for two weeks. It was ridiculous and uncomfortable to watch. I don’t understand why anyone would volunteer to be on that show, and I doubly don’t understand why you would volunteer to live with another family for two weeks and not be open to learning something about the way they do life. Seems like a great opportunity to broaden your horizons, to me at least. I guess I would not make a good candidate for the show. The episode ended with the husband of the SF lady devolving into an immature mess of a person, hurtling insults and throwing temper tantrums that would have been shocking from a two-year-old.
I should never get cable. I get sucked into watching shows that don’t even remotely interest me, and then once they’ve started I feel I must continue at least to the end of the episode. I invest much too quickly.
And then I saw this ad during the Superbowl last night, and I realized–it’s the truth! It’s absolutely the truth. And I always thought there was something a little creepy about Alec Baldwin…
5 Comments
Yes, I agree with you that Wife Swap is the most awful show! We didn’t have cable for many years, but when we bought a nice TV it didn’t make sense to have a rabbit-ear antenna anymore. But we also pay an extra $5 for a DVR and record all the shows we watch. This way we are not at the mercy of the TV gods. In fact, I rarely turn on the TV to just flip the channels. Most of the time I am watching something recorded and fast-forwarding through the commercials.
Too bad you didn’t get the Jeopardy channel! I love that show
Also, 30 Rock is good. Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey are hilarious. And TV will turn your brain to mush if you watch it too much. But sometimes I just have to because I spend all day at work reading, and my eyes need a break. What did people do in the olden days? Listen to the radio and play board games? Go to sleep at 8?
We are looking into maybe getting basic cable that will at least give us all the local channels. I think it’s something like $7 per month. And I believe that may include whatever channel Jeopardy! comes on (best show ever). I think choosing what to watch before turning the TV on sounds like a very good idea. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with TV. I know some people do, and I can see where they’re coming from, but I’m with you–sometimes my brain wants to be just a little mushy for a while. Sometimes it’s nice to relax and be entertained.
Last night Jesse and I spent about an hour or so just playing music together (I was playing piano, and he grabbed a guitar). It was weird and kind of delightful. I felt like I was in a time warp. I didn’t miss the TV one bit…but that could also be because there wasn’t anything interesting on…
“Lost (which doesn’t count as television, since it actually makes you smarter every time you watch it).”
Ah, what good news! I won’t worry about the mush factor when I watch this show at least.
Yes, I’m with Yana. I can’t imagine how I watched TV before DVR. I’ll very occasionally just turn the TV on to see what is on, usually when I don’t “intend” to spend long enough watching to bother playing a recorded show. But of course, I usually get sucked in. That is how I saw part of one episode of Wife Swap. I agree; it is one of the most reprehensible things on TV.
While I don’t doubt that the people who go on the show are somewhat stereotypical and narrow-minded, I really think that the extreme versions we see on “reality” TV are attributable to the scripts and/or general instructions from the producers. I really don’t doubt that many of those shows use scripts and do multiple takes, etc., or at the very least, the people are encouraged to act so heinously and the situations are sort of staged. At least I certainly hope that is true. The alternative is that the world is filled with some pretty crazy and horrible people!
Yes, if you get basic cable, I think that includes Jeopardy!-definitely a wonderful show. And not brain mushifying but brain growing.
1) Yay for the little Worldchanging cover I see in the margin!
2) Okay, but Jessica’s jeans really were pretty awful.
3) OMG, I’ve seen that show! And I haven’t had TV in about 15 months. It was on at my BFF’s when I went to her place for dinner, and I found it absolutely traumatizing. “Reprehensible” is a good word for it, too.
4) While I’d like to think that there’s some staging of “reality,” I do think that the reality in this world is that there are some pretty crazy and horrible people out there. I’ve met at least a couple dozen of them!
5) I do miss TV for general decompression’s sake. But anything I’d want to watch is on DVD now, so my Netflix account suffices. And I’ve been known to listen to the iPod and go to bed at 9. I think the idea of you and Jesse playing music together is very idyllic!
1) Yes–it’s quite a beast of a book! But I like dictionary-sized things.
2) You’re very right. I’m not sure what the idea behind that outfit was, but it wasn’t a good one.
3) I’m glad I wasn’t the only one with that reaction!
4) Let’s keep hoping Zea was right, at least about those people on Wife Swap…there are some wacky people out there, but that British guy was just…oh, I don’t know how to describe it…well, I do, but I won’t.
5) Netflix rules.