Monday, September 22, 2008

The end is near

At least as far as my TV viewing habits are concerned.
For several years now the television network executives have relentlessly hacked away at the kinds of TV programming that I find pleasurable or even tolerable. They have slowly canceled all the shows that I used to watch regularly and replaced them with unwatchable “reality show” dreck. New shows that I would find somewhat interesting would get canceled in the middle of a season. This had the effect of teaching me not to invest my time in watching new shows until they are well established.
Then last season I found that I was left with just three shows that I took the time to watch on a regular weekly basis — ER, Lost and Boston Legal. (And to my chagrin, ER and Lost air at the same time). ER, it was announced, was in its final season and they had already declared that their would be a limited lifespan for Lost. So this just left Boston Legal.
Now I have learned that this will also be the final season for Boston Legal, and a truncated one to boot. They only produced half as many Boston Legal shows this season plus a two-hour finale to wrap it all up.
And with that I guess I can just sell my television set. Nothing else that is coming out new this season looks even halfway interesting, and even if it did I know better than to invest my time watching it just to have the networks pull the plug halfway through.
So I give up. After this season I will not have any traditional TV programming to watch. Oh, there will still be plenty of stuff to watch - news shows like Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report - Home and Garden channel, Discovery Network, Sports, classic movies on AMC and TCM, etc.
But the era of traditional TV programming is being undermined by the greed and stupidity of today’s clueless network executives who wouldn’t know a hit TV show if it bit them on the ass.

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