“What’s happening in this world, I don’t care at all
But it better not pre-empt Monday Night Football
I can’t even come up with my own views
I’m taught how to think from the evening news”
~ ‘TV’, by Hoppus/DeLonge/Raynor
from the Blink-182 album “Cheshire Cat”, 1994
Last week, I wrote about the first part of the day during which I spent a good many hours in front of the TV, and described some of my many varied thoughts. Most of them scathing. I find little to celebrate about what’s on the box, and spending those hours gave me the opportunity to garner some solid ammunition for a good rant. Raging against the machine can be cleansing, like taking out one’s frustrations on a punching bag. With TV, however, there’s plenty to find grating, so for me it’s a bit more like shooting fish in a barrel. A very small barrel. With a bazooka.
Time: 1200 hours
Hours of TV so far: about 4 ½
Number of occasions I’ve wondered whether or not this was a good idea: 147
Prior to the lunch hour, I’d drifted across a few of the news services while channel surfing. When noon kicked around, I found myself trying to avoid the Oprahs and Dr Phils of the world, and largely failing. I happened upon Ellen DeGeneres (Ch9). I don’t mind Ellen DeGeneres (the person, that is). She seems genuinely intelligent and manages to negotiate a delicate balance between the squealing masses that become giddy at the thought of being in a studio audience near a real life celebrity and the realisation that being on TV is really quite ludicrous. I don’t think her audience or her guests realise that Ellen probably holds them in a degree of contempt, the vast majority of her (quite funny) jokes are at their expense.
Among her interviewees on this auspicious day are the ‘stars’ of an American reality TV show call Jersey Shore (only shown in Australia on pay TV - another good reason not to subscribe). “Spectacularly moronic” and “catastrophically dull” are two phrases that merely scratch the surface in describing the miscreants that are highlighted on this program, given what was on display by Ellen’s guests. I’m staggered that there is a program that actively features the misadventures of these people that actually passes for entertainment. Surely you could get much the same thing filling a house with a dozen shaved chimpanzees laden with bling and hair gel, and plying them with alcohol? I would imagine a similar level of intelligence as well.
Ellen ridicules them mercilessly with a deft hand, teasing them with the warmest of grins, so the overly-buffed morons don’t even know they’re being held up in derision. If it weren’t for the fact that their ‘celebrity’ is no doubt making them obscene piles of money, I’d feel sorry for them. Actually, no, I still wouldn’t.
Time: 1400 hours
Number of trips to the pantry looking for BBQ Shapes: 7
Number of boxes of BBQ Shapes found: 0
Daytime TV is a dire beast, at once miserable and unimaginative. The new free-to-air channels that have bobbed up have given more choice in programming, to be sure, but let’s face it - it’s not better TV as much as more of the same drivel. It has afforded the stations an opportunity to fill their schedules with re-re-reruns of old (sometimes very old) TV shows that once graced the airways during the prime-times of yore. Friends, Roseanne, Murder She Wrote, Seinfeld, Bewitched, I Dream Of Jeannie, Mork and Mindy, Family Ties, and many others have had a new lease of life on 11 (Ch11), 7Two (Ch72), 7Mate (Ch73), Gem (Ch90), and GO! (Ch99). Watching many of these made me realise just how dated and cheesy they really are, and I wonder if the shows we see in primetime today are going to hold up any better. I guess the best today’s programs can hope for is that they become pop-culture folklore, like MacGyver (Ch11). The name of the program (and main character, played by the mullet-wearing Richard Dean Anderson) has become a verb in some contexts - to fix something cleverly with limited resources is said to have ‘MacGyvered’ it. Having entered into common lexicon, MacGyver has achieved some sort of immortality, other than endless syndicated reruns.
Following the late afternoon and early evening news services, which regurgitate the same news I had seen variations of all day, came the televisual equivalent of a frontal lobotomy, Channels 7&9’s respective “current affairs” offerings, Today Tonight and A Current Affair. Those that know me know that I’m on the record as pretty much despising these shows. The main reason is that what’s in the box is completely different from the description on the label. They appear to me to be news and current affairs programs almost entirely devoid of news and current affairs. If it has a trunk like an elephant, ears like an elephant, tusks like an elephant, it’s big and grey and you saw it on an African savannah, why call it a bowl of cornflakes? They are tabloids and advertorials on the small screen, NOT current affairs programs.
I flitted between ACA and TT and absorbed an hour’s worth of nonsense in a half-hour slot. ACA started their show with a ridiculous exposé of the Channel 7 show Australia’s Got Talent, fraudulently claiming some higher moral standing in the process. They then featured a story on an apparent argument between Blanche d’Alpuget and the daughter of Bob Hawke, as witnessed by the ever reliable paparazzi. Since they didn’t have vision, the producers were kind enough to show a crude reenactment animation of the alleged fight. Just what all Australians really needed, a cartoon catfight. How thoughtful of them. They followed up with the breathless revelation that several MacDonald’s had been held up, the apparent moral to the story is that armed robbery is not very nice. They promised to further contribute meaningfully to society the following evening with a segment on weight loss secrets. I’ll bet the farm that exercising and eating less won’t get a look in.
Today Tonight did not fare any better. It started with a price comparison between supermarkets, and in typical one-sided fashion, interviewed only those whose vested interests were being promoted in the piece. They promised their own version of the Australia’s Got Talent exposé which turned out to be little more than an ad for the program. They returned to the tried-and-true cash-for-comment-style “journalism” with a segment on new smart TVs, featuring the grinning faces of the retailers who will soon be selling those very same products to the unsuspecting public, without so much as a “this segment brought to you by” tag. Two of these kinds of stories in one show is shameful stuff, frankly. I was desperately wanting the host of Media Watch (Ch2) to burst into the TT studios and give them all a bit of a smug spanking, but alas, the moment never came.
The time for these kinds of shows (if there ever was one) has passed. They need axing, and quickly, before more people get sucked into the ignominy of producing and indeed watching them. Newer shows like The 7PM Project (Ch10), which follows an actual current affairs program in 6:30 With George Negus, at least wears its heart of entertainment on its sleeve.
Time: 1900 hours
Number of showers I felt I needed during ACA and TT to get rid of that grubby feeling: 37
Most commonly used phrase of the day so far: “Can I please stop now?”
GO! (Ch99) was the next destination, for a little bit of a tonic to all those “hard-hitting” shows, with Australia’s Funniest Videos, featuring all kinds of sound-effected slapstick. After a few short minutes of toddlers face-planting into dog poo and surprised men being unexpectedly smacked in the privates, I’d had my fill. How many times can you really see these kinds of things before they become passé? Whatever the figure, I’d reached it. What I had not yet reached, was the end of this day of TV… you can find out how it all ended next week.
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