Some Thoughts on Today's TV

Make no mistake, I love television. I was in the First Generation of television, where, if your family had at TV, they were considered "well off" by the rest of the neighbors. My next-door neighbor had the first color TV I ever saw, maybe 1960? I remember getting an "Antenna Rotor," one of the first electric-motorized TV antennas, that relieved my sisters and my requirement to go out and physically turn the antenna pole whenever Dad changed a channel. We had a black-and-white Zenith console, that had one of the "clunky" first remote controls. In Vallejo, depending on the weather, we got five channels, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and an independant, KTVU, all out of San Francisco/Oakland. On rare evenings, we could pick-up the Sacramento channels, but that took a lot of adjusting, antenna-wise. Today, with cable/sattelite TV, the reception is great, and there's a lot on. Today's television set, or should I say "monitor" provides a clearness, a sharpness that we couldn't even dream of back in the early days. If it was possible to pluck someone out of a 1950's armchair, and place a 2010 television in front of him, they wouldn't believe it. As a technology, television hasn't just evolved, it continues to grow in leaps and bounds.

I just wish that the quality of television programming had followed suit...

In my youth, the networks competed in an attempt to bring wholesome, family entertainment. Now-days, it's anything goes. I remember Marshall Dillon shooting the Bad Guy, we didn't have to see the realism, blood splattering everywhere, gory wounds of all kinds, and on one show, the path of a bullet through a persons body (courtesy CGI). An the language...

It's bad enough that we've become a profanity-driven society, but now it's on TV, in my home. I'm old-fashioned, I believe that my home can be an oasis from that kind of language. Certainly I would never refer to Mary as a "B&*%$" at home. Not because I'm afraid of the consequences, I've been handed my testicles before, metaphorically. It's because I have a deep respect for her, and am incapable of thinking of her in that manner. Profanity deeply offends Mary, particularly when it invokes God. To that end, taking control of the only environment I can influence, my home is a profanity-free zone. At her work, out of respect for their Manager's desires, the use of profanities has dropped significantly. Away from home, however, ...I'm a golfer, c'mon, you gonna render me speachless?

Ever since the Writer's Strike, TV has gone to "reality telivision". What I want to know is "whose" reality are we talking about? Certainly the Kardasians don't mirror my reality, nor do any of the guests on Springer, or Maury. My reality, in all honesty, bore y'all to death. OK, I do peek in at Celebrity Rehab, from time-to-time, but only to reassure myself that other people are just as screwed up as me (I came to terms with those problems years ago, however, and live a comfortable, sober life at present). The themes of these shows, Maury and his ilk, are a litany of marital/sexual woes that are best left to privacy.

Privacy, there's something you hear a lot about, often in the context of a "right to privacy". Guess what, folks, you do not have a right to privacy, the word isn't mentioned anywhere in the Bill of Rights. You can have a "reasonable expectation of privacy," but even that is open to debate. Your privacy ended with the internet. The more it's used, the more information there is about you floating somewhere in cyber-space. Privacy became an issue in an old, gay rights Supreme Court decision, and the court ruled on the basis of that "reasonable expectation," but you had better start learning that your life is "an open book."

But I digress... I have channels, lots and lots of channels. Most of it is crap, lots and lots of crap. I have Spanish-language channels, didn't ask for them as I speak "muy picito espanol," but got them anyway. I don't mind it so much, but didn't it tell the cable company something when I pressed "1" for English? Seems to me that piece of information is being ignored. There are probably a dozen, or more, shopping channels, food channels, sports channels, local access channels, travel channels, the list is long, but nowhere can you find good, wholsome programming anymore. It's like the network is a shark in a net, constantly probing for an opportunity to go a little further. The various networks duel to bring you the events, "as they happen," regardless of the outcome. Television networks have all battled to be able to actually show an execution, live, but the courts have had the decency to continue to forbid it.

Shock TV. That's what it has become. Who can be shockingly graphic, or graphically real? How many times do you hear the words "...the shocking conclusion...," or "...shocking horror...," or more than a dozen other references to "schock"? My favorite is, "...this shocking development..." Again, to whom? Some schmuck in LA leads a police chase, and it's on 50 different channels. "...this shocking development, just in, Congress holds itself in contempt, and everyone resigns." That would be shocking. Short of that, I've had a stroke, actually at least two, I don't need shocking. I need entertainment.

Of all of the "reality" programming, I actually like two shows. I will state, at this point, for the record, I am not, now, nor have I ever been gay. I like American Idol, and America's Got Talent. As a former singer and actor, I enjoy watching new talent. It's just a long-running talent contest, narrated by a "pretty boy," and allows people an opportunity to perform, and to be professionally critiqued. Wish I'd had that opportunity when I was young. Who knows, I might have been American Idol 1975, or something. AGT is different, in that it's more than just singers. Some of the dancers, and specialty acts, are pretty good.

I've been watching History Channel quite a bit, lately. With 2012, and the expiration of the Mayan Calendar looming, it's been quite informative. Since I am a history and archeology devotee, History Channel is definitely one of my favorites.