What is it with the crap on TV that passes entertainment?!

[MUAD_DIB]

I don't watch TV generally. I really spend most of my time on the internets.

Ghost whisperer?

Medium?

Did I just pick the wrong channel one the one night that I wasn't watching something somewhat educational?

[Touchdown]

1. Want more, wait 'til you see Fringe.

Boo!

[WCGreen]

2. Fringe at least is fun t watch....

[hlthe2b]

6. I agree and I don't even like that genre...

But, it has decent actors and it is interesting.

[Cheap_Trick]

9. Agreed.

Came to the party late. I'm just about done with season 1 on blue ray.

[johnaries]

12. Actually "Fringe" is quite intellectual.

At least compared to most shows. The multi-verse is a real theory. And at least it makes the audience stop and think about "alternatives".

The operative word here is "think".

[Touchdown]

39. They caught me at the wrong time.

The first, last and only episode I watched was the 3ft cold virus episode. Gross out, and dumb! Never gave it another chance, and I shouldn't, unless the cold virus episode is expunged from my memory.

[elocs]

3. There's lots out there. Some good, some bad, some crappy.

I know some very strict Pentecostals who feel holy and self righteous that they do not watch tv or have one in their homes. Funny how the two ends of the spectrum meet.

[Dr Morbius]

4. I was born in 1962. So since that time, pick a decade. Any decade.

And I will name dozens of unbelievably awful programs (crap) that were passed off as entertainment. Throughout the entire history of TV, the offerings have been mostly bad with little bits of excellence here and there. That's still the case. However, when I was a kid we had six stations: the three network affilliates, PBS, and a couple local channels. Now TV has dozens of channels in broadcast and hundreds on cable. That doesn't improve the percentages of crap and quality.

[Hempathy]

20. I was born in 1961, and can name plenty of shows from the same time spans that I enjoyed thoroughly

but- Different Strokes was definitely for different folks than me.

[DJ13]

23. My Mother the Car, Mr. Ed

Seriously, what WERE they thinking?!

:rofl:

[GoCubsGo]

A better question...

What WERE they SMOKING? Been watching "Mr. Ed" reruns lately. Seriously, I want some of whatever that stuff was.

[hlthe2b]

5. I tossed the tv long ago... but it seems that Fri/Sat have not

had anything worth watching for years.... The little tv I watch now keeps dwindling down to what I can readily watch on Hulu.com or elsewhere a day or so later.

[TommyO]

43. Battlestar Galactica (when it was on), Caprica

and sometimes Stargate: Universe (think Star Trek: Voyager in an ancient, broken-down ship).

[Speck Tater]

7. Those two are high quality video literature compared to...

Paris Hilton's British Best Friend and Punked.

In fact, Medium is occasionally halfway decent fantasy fiction. Ghost Whisperer, however, jumped the shark about 4 seasons ago, and is pure dreck now.

[mockmonkey]

17. Ghost Whisperer

Has not been renewed and shall soon haunt the world in rerun form.

[eShirl]

22. hooray!

I won't have to bite my tongue and try not to roll my eyes anymore (DH watches it)

[icee]

8. I'll watch a show or two once a month, and have been doing that

for 30 years now. Every show seems to be about someone winning some kind of contest or someone getting their house fixed or buying a house. And the news? Bwahahahahaha. If Edward R Murrow ever saw what passes for news nowaday, he'd throw up.

[Skip Intro]

10. I watched a Medium rerun on cable a few months ago, and now I'm hooked.

I don't know why, exactly, but I like the show.

[BlueMTexpat]

36. I must confess to the same vice.

But I never could get into GW. At all.

My all-time favorite US TV show of the past decade, however, is "The Wire" (HBO). I have all five seasons on DVD and it only gets better the more times that you see it, IMO. Some US universities and at least one in the UK are using the series as a basis for sociological courses. It is also quite popular in Continental Europe.

[blue sky at night]

11. are you trying to tell us you don't believe........

in a person's soul, and that it just might exist outside of the body??

[Cleita]

13. Friday night is sci-fi, fantasy night.

Stargate Universe, Merlin, Ghost Whisperer and Medium. I like it all. It's escapism after a bad week of realism. If you get HBO, there is Bill Maher on tonight.

[fishwax]

14. I enjoy Medium, but haven't seen the ghost whisperer

I'm not saying that Medium is the best show on television, or anything, but (assuming one doesn't take it too seriously--and fortunately, the show doesn't take itself too seriously) it can be all in good fun.

[Cleita]

15. Well, Ghost Whisperer is a lot about fashion and clothes too, so

women like it. Besides that, the actor who plays Melinda's husband is beyond hot.

[Iggo]

40. And every 4th or 5th episode....

....stars Jennifer Love Hewitt's cleavage.

I'm gonna miss the girls.

[eShirl]

25. They have a lot of similarities, but Ghost Whisperer's written for a lower IQ target audience.

[Cleita]

30. Yeah and my IQ is pretty low by that time on Friday night.

:dunce::silly:

[Iggo]

41. To wit, my response # 40.

B-)

[undeterred]

16. Did anyone watch the bloodbath on Greys Anatomy last night?

Final episodes go over the top.

[bigwillq]

18. Friday isn't the best night for TV

at least on the networks.

[Hempathy]

19. i'm going to say- wrong channel, wrong night.

But I can usually find something that can keep me entertained on some level- even on regular broadcast tv.

I've never understood why some people insist on being "snobbish" about tv programming- everyone has different tastes, as far as how they spend their free time is concerned, and nothing is going to interest and/or please everyone. for myself, for instance- I'd much rather watch a marathon of CSI(original, not extra-Spadey) repeats than read just about anything by Jane Austen(or even watch any movie/video versions- just NOT interested), while I'm sure that plenty of people would feel exactly the opposite.

[Mike K]

31. I agree.

There usually is something worth watching on the History, Discovery, National Geographic or Animal Planet channels. Also, HBO and Showtime usually have pretty good series running. Right now The Tudors is an excellent series. Deadwood was superb. The Mad Men will be starting a new season soon and The Pacific just finished.

[Hempathy]

32. I tried to get into "The Pacific"...several times...but it just never grabbed me.

HOWEVER-

True Blood Season 3 is just around the corner. :woohoo:

We don't have Showtime...but the 'On Demand' feature on comcast is pretty decent.

And if all else fails- I have around 1200 movies and tv shows on dvd- not counting the ones I burned myself.

[zonkers]

34. Pacific was no Band of Brothers. It was corny and convoluted.

[BlueJazz]

21. I'm quite fond of Medium. Ghost Whisperer used to be interesting. Now it Sucks..bigtime.

[WCGreen]

28. I like Medium as well....

I won't tape it or go out of my way to see it but if it's on it feels like comfortable old sweeter that move like it's anticipating where I'm going next...

[seabeyond]

24. i stopped watching tv a couple years ago. i watch stewart and colbert cause hubby turns

it on or i forget them too.

i read

so, i cant give you an answer

[Warpy]

26. I've only had a dish for 4 years

but I still confine my fare to old films, science, and the occasional history show that isn't produced by and for wooheads.

I used to watch HGTV until just one yuppie too many sniffed at the acres of granite and stainless steel s/he had insisted on and sneered that s/he just never cooked, like it's menial work for an underclass. If I had continued to watch, I'd have been compelled to commit a random act of violence.

[Cresent City Kid]

27. I like reality shows unless...

... they have arbitrary contests, strangers hooking up, the home life of celebrities, singing or dancing, people I don't know doing shit I don't care about, or any combination of these.

edit: Also shows about people just doing their jobs.

[Nailzberg]

29. C-list celeb reality, drunk young people hooking up reality, and stupid competition reality all suck

I do enjoy the people doing their jobs stuff, although it tends to be heavily produced these days. But some shows do step back and take a more documentary approach.


I've shot many bad shows, I wish many were better.

[Kitsune]

33. For the Fall 2010 season, 39% of broadcast network shows in prime time are legal procedurals.

I would like to think at some point we'll hit saturation and the genre will die back like the hospital genre did. Right now that's literally just House and Grey's Anatomy.

[Iggo]

42. Oh that's right. Mercy and Trauma bit the shit.

So it's 40% legal procedurals. Do you happen to know the primetime percentage of 'reality' shows?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. I read somewhere that in the 1958-59 season there were TWENTY-THREE

Western series on the air. I was a kid at the time, and it sure seemed that way to me. It was all cowboys and Indians all the time.

[Rex]

35. Most of TVEE is crap and at 3am it is penis commercials.

One or two things on to watch out of hundreds of channels.

[Duer 157099]

37. That's why god invented HBO and SHO n/t

[Codeine]

38. There's probably more quality television available in this era

than at any time in the history of the medium. The sheer number of programs out there has assured that there will inevitably be some really good stuff, but it has also made the task of separating wheat and chaff more difficult.