Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
TV Land Is Now TV Bland
I used to love TV Land. I remember when the network first launched in 1996. I stayed home all day and watched all the cool old sitcoms, dramas, and variety shows that I had only heard about from my parents. When all the network shows were trying to be poorly-written rehashes of Friends, Seinfeld, and Melrose Place it was refreshing to see something well-written rather than just a bunch of catch phrases strung together into a 22 minute crapfest of a show.
Then, TV Land started to change things up about 3 or 4 years ago. They started weeding out the great sitcoms from the era known as the "Golden Age" of tv, and started airing shows from the 1990's and 2000's (commonly known as the "Worthless Bulls**t Age" of tv). They dubbed these sitcoms "Modern Classics." Now, even though I would lament the loss of great 60's sitcoms, I could tolerate real modern classics that you never see anymore (something like Cheers). Yet what TV Land airs are cheap shows that are easy to acquire the rights to; shows that can be seen in 2 hour blocks every afternoon on TBS, or on any local station between the local news and the prime time line-up. Do you consider Just Shoot Me (a show no one watched when it was airing every week on NBC, and was lucky to have limped through the few seasons that it limped through) a Modern Classic?
Well, the Modern Classics nonsense is bad, but at least TV Land had not stooped to airing reality shows.
All that changed a year and a half ago when TV Land, in an effort to draw in that 25-54 demographic (that's IQ points, not age), started airing crap like High School Reunion, and She's Got The Look. You know the plots of these shows, because they're like every the plots of every banal, worthless reality show: A bunch of self-centered 30 and 40-somethings put aised their families and responsibilities for a few weeks for their 15 minutes of fame.
It gets worse. This spring, TV Land rolled out a new reality show called The Cougar. The show, as far as I can tell, is about a horny, self-centered 40 year old woman who tries to catch as many venereal diseases as possible from equally horny, and self-centered 20 year old boys.
Oh, and I almost forgot the other great shows TV Land aired a few years ago:Mr. T's I Pity The Fool, where Mr. T. Travels around the country, you guessed it...Pitying fools! There was also the great show Family Foreman, starring George Foreman and his 750 sons...Also named George. I guess people just aren't buying those grills like they used to.
There was also another great show in which poor, frail Bea Arthur was forced to be a substitute teacher for a day (because...see...that was her job on Golden Girls, and they thought it would be wacky to take this poor elderly woman who looked like the Crypt Keeper, and put her doing the job her former tv character did). This could be a great idea if it was executed properly (like forcing William Shatner to fly the space shuttle, or having Bob Newhart give psychological advice)...but I digress.
Speaking of people who look like the Crypt Keeper, TV Land is now hawking an upcoming show called How'd You Get So Rich starring Joan Rivers. After all, who DOESN'T love Joan Rivers! From what I can understand, the show features Joan Rivers running around and talking to rich people about how they got so rich, and how absolutely fabulous it is to be rich! Now, I'm watching!
Joan Rivers Moments Before Her Most Recent Plastic Surgery
And they wonder why people are abandoning tv and turning to the internet for entertainment.
Then, TV Land started to change things up about 3 or 4 years ago. They started weeding out the great sitcoms from the era known as the "Golden Age" of tv, and started airing shows from the 1990's and 2000's (commonly known as the "Worthless Bulls**t Age" of tv). They dubbed these sitcoms "Modern Classics." Now, even though I would lament the loss of great 60's sitcoms, I could tolerate real modern classics that you never see anymore (something like Cheers). Yet what TV Land airs are cheap shows that are easy to acquire the rights to; shows that can be seen in 2 hour blocks every afternoon on TBS, or on any local station between the local news and the prime time line-up. Do you consider Just Shoot Me (a show no one watched when it was airing every week on NBC, and was lucky to have limped through the few seasons that it limped through) a Modern Classic?
Well, the Modern Classics nonsense is bad, but at least TV Land had not stooped to airing reality shows.
All that changed a year and a half ago when TV Land, in an effort to draw in that 25-54 demographic (that's IQ points, not age), started airing crap like High School Reunion, and She's Got The Look. You know the plots of these shows, because they're like every the plots of every banal, worthless reality show: A bunch of self-centered 30 and 40-somethings put aised their families and responsibilities for a few weeks for their 15 minutes of fame.
It gets worse. This spring, TV Land rolled out a new reality show called The Cougar. The show, as far as I can tell, is about a horny, self-centered 40 year old woman who tries to catch as many venereal diseases as possible from equally horny, and self-centered 20 year old boys.
Oh, and I almost forgot the other great shows TV Land aired a few years ago:Mr. T's I Pity The Fool, where Mr. T. Travels around the country, you guessed it...Pitying fools! There was also the great show Family Foreman, starring George Foreman and his 750 sons...Also named George. I guess people just aren't buying those grills like they used to.
There was also another great show in which poor, frail Bea Arthur was forced to be a substitute teacher for a day (because...see...that was her job on Golden Girls, and they thought it would be wacky to take this poor elderly woman who looked like the Crypt Keeper, and put her doing the job her former tv character did). This could be a great idea if it was executed properly (like forcing William Shatner to fly the space shuttle, or having Bob Newhart give psychological advice)...but I digress.
Speaking of people who look like the Crypt Keeper, TV Land is now hawking an upcoming show called How'd You Get So Rich starring Joan Rivers. After all, who DOESN'T love Joan Rivers! From what I can understand, the show features Joan Rivers running around and talking to rich people about how they got so rich, and how absolutely fabulous it is to be rich! Now, I'm watching!
Joan Rivers Moments Before Her Most Recent Plastic SurgeryAnd they wonder why people are abandoning tv and turning to the internet for entertainment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
