I'm a TV junkie. There are hundreds of shows that I will watch, but some that I cannot have shown on my TV - even as background noise. The primary no-no is Full House. I won't watch it, no matter how bored I am or how offensive the rest of the offerings are. Even if I'm in a stupor I snap out of it at the sight of the Olsen twins screaming "Not Full House," and regain consciousness enough to change the channel. Two other shows that I must get off the TV at once are Cosby and A Different World. I remember watching both of them when I was younger, but not now. The cutesy stuff that substituted for a plot on Cosby is now gorge inducing, especially in light of what I've read about Bill Cosby's extra curricular activities. When I see the characters doing their dances in the intro to A Different World, it's time to flee Nick At Nite.
Another show that I can't watch and don't know how anyone could is Dawson's Creek. It seems to consist entirely of atmosphere and anticipation. The mood is resigned and talky, as if teenagers were Albert Brooks on downers. Then the show's feeble-minded creators throw this self-congratulary amber haze over the whole thing to take the sentimentality level up to nauseate. Sure, I think retarded people deserve to be in the work force, just not as TV producers. The other day, as my Tivo had gone on the fritz, I found myself actually watching an episode of Dawson's Creek, and trying to follow the plot. I shook myself by the shoulders with what remained of my will. I had hit rock bottom. I had gone so deep into my addiction that I was actually watching an episode of Dawson's Creek with comprehension. I considered whether the time had come to die.
What is there on TV that you'd rather kill yourself than watch?
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
The obvious answer is that you won't get much response because, um, people you so sweetly inquire of have killed themselves.
:-)
Personally I'd rather, I dunno and call me crazy, turn off a too-long list of garbage before I'd kill myself.
How about, which show would you chop off a hand to watch rather than see it pulled off the air if you knew the hand would grow back in a year?
Though it would be the same hand as the one you didn't cut off.
And you have a 50/50 chance that it would be the hand of a member of the opposite sex. If you're a transexual television (I was going to type TV but that might have been confusing in context) viewer under this weight of predicament then magic from Phaze or Xanth will play a part.
And further that you have a 1 in 19 chance that there will be yellowed nicotine fingernail stains on that hand.
For me then ... um, I'd stick to DVDs.
2 - Celeste O.
Better question for you: Do two self-absorbed paragraphs and a question constitute an opinion post?
No.
3 - Bob A. Booey
If you're talking shows that are now off the air, "Dawson's Creek" and "Ally McBeal" are right up there, along with the many horrible comedies NBC tried to slot into Thursdays after "Friends" ("Friends" with ugly people X 25). I've never really given it a chance, but I know I'd hate "Sex and the City" as well, but I know I'm alone on that.
If you're talking shows on now, "Boston Legal" (anything by David E. Kelley makes me ill upon sight and Shatner's becoming more and more ridiculous and cartoonish as an actor, if that's at all possible), "7th Heaven," "Yes Dear," "Still Standing" and the mediocre CBS comedies, "One Tree Hill," and "Las Vegas."
I've never watched them, but I'm pretty sure I have no use for CBS Republican senior citizen military justice snoozefests like "NCIS" and "JAG" or the cancelled estrogen-fests like "Judging Amy" or "Touched by an Angel."
The Mel Gibson "comedy" that was on briefly -- "The Savages?" -- and basically every NBC comedy starring Brecken Meyer or Jonathan Silverman I hated with a passion.
I can't think of a show I rooted against more than "Coupling," however, in recent memory. I hated everything about that show, from the smug, stupid actors they cast, to the snarky yuppie advertisements, to the fact that they set it in Chicago. Anyone who got caught having such annoying and uninteresting conversations about sex and dating in a subterranean bar/lounge like that in Chicago would automatically get yelled at to shut the fuck up. We don't like whiny yuppies.
That is all.
4 - Tan The Man
I watched Full House as a kid, and now I occasionally watch it as an adult. If you look at the really old 1-3 season episodes, there are a lot of dirty jokes that I get now, but didn't get then. It's fun to see how far these "family sit-coms" went to please their adult audiences.
5 - Bob A. Booey
There weren't any dirty jokes on Full House! What show were you watching?
If you watch that show or Family Matters now, there are lots of cringe moments, especially the Michelle thumbs-up "You got it dude!" moments with Uncle Jessie or Dave Coulier's Bullwinkle moose voices.
But I liked both shows as a kid. John Stamos and his wife on the show were a hot couple who acted like big dweebs. There's something funny about that. Uncle Jessie was so lame. Have Mercy.
That is all.
6 - Cerulean
Celeste O.--
Which one of the Olsen twins are you?
7 - Victor Plenty
WARNING: this comment not for the faint of heart. May induce reverse peristalsis in persons with refined aesthetic sensibilities or the ability to dance in urban nightclubs. You have been warned.
At one time, I thought one fate worse than death would be having to watch The Lawrence Welk Show. Later in life I came to despise this fear as an abominable weakness and resolved to face it down. That was a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. I should have left well enough alone. As H.P. Lovecraft tried to teach us, there are still in this universe many Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
Now I am addicted. Every week I must watch Mr. Welk and the whole Welk Musical Family revisit the golden hit songs of yesteryear. Interspersed with folksy commentary and family photos from a surviving cast member. Usually directly from one of the golf greens at the Welk Resort in Branson, Missouri.
Please, save yourself from my fate. If you hate and fear a television show there is probably a good reason. Trust your instincts. Keep a firm grip on your remote control. If all else fails, turn off the television and read a book.
You'll be glad you did.
8 - Al Barger
May the Gopher God save you Victor, or at least gnaw your head off and put you out of your misery.
So many tv shows might make suicide seem like an attractive option, but the shrew wife and put upon pansy husband makes "Everybody Loves Raymond" my top death-before watching pick.
9 - Cerulean
God, you just brought back all that torture of my parents watching the Lawrence Welk Show on Sunday afternoons on the one TV in the living room!!!!
"A-one, a-two a . . . cue the bubbles."
Not the bubbles, not the bubbles.
God it's horrible!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhh! In the sixties and seventies, your parents' music on the turntable and their programs on the TV were torture to the children. There was no escape from "some nice dinner music" by Mel Torme the Velvet Fog. Everytime you went to a restaurant, there was syrupy muzak in the background, principally, "Stranger's in the Night" played over and over. And Sunday, it was Lawrence Welk. If you think it was cool living in the sixties and seventies, think of that.
Dear God. You abuse yourself, Victor. You totally debase yourself and rub your nose in the congealed syrup on the IHOP table of modern culture! You have to get out of that. I shook myself out of watching Dawson's Creek. You can do it, man.
Tell me, are you wearing a Dirndl right now?
10 - Victor Plenty
I don't have the legs to wear a kilt, much less a dirndl!
Thanks for your (sort of) supportive words, though, Cerulean. Maybe someday I can afford a treatment program for this heinous addiction.
Or maybe I just need to start dating.
11 - Cerulean
Where you gonna find someone wearing a gingham frock these days? Ugh, you brought it all back. I'm going to bill you for the deprogramming.
12 - Victor Plenty
Maybe here?
(If that link doesn't actually go anywhere yet, better snap it up. Some day soon it'll be a valuable property.)
13 - Mark Sahm
Thankfully, life without cable has been great... although I highly doubt it saved my life.
The show I still happen to unbearably cross paths with on network TV is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Sure, it's nice to see poor families get a nice house and I like home improvement shows, but the EM:HE content is so sappy and that host is a 40-year old trying to act like a hip teenager.
14 - Bob A. Booey
The only thing worth watching on cable is Comedy Central, ESPN and HBO. What exactly do you get in your cable package if you don't even get those, Berlin?
I think the advent of TV seasons on DVD has made it much easier for me to be OK with missing the HBO shows, although I sort of do wish I could watch the Daily Show and the new Adam Carolla show regularly.
I don't have cable either. It's surprisingly liberating because there's too much to watch on TV already. Plus, I don't feel like I have to watch TV EVERY night -- Monday nights, for example, suck and I don't have to feel like I'm missing anything on Friday and Saturday nights when I go out.
That is all.
15 - Mark Sahm
Booey: I'll assume you were talking to me since EB didn't comment on this post. But this was my cable chronicle, posted shortly you made your comeback to BC I believe.
Yes, liberation is a good thing, even if it's from a delusional American drone standpoint.
16 - Shark
Q: What TV Show Would You Rather Kill Yourself Than Watch?
A: I don't know; I've never seen it.
~NEXT!
17 - Shark
okay, funny haha.
And somebody hadda do it.
BTW: Besides Dennis Miller's unwatchable disaster on CNBC -- my criteria is this:
The show that contains the person I'd most like to see have molten lead poured in his ears -- which means the entire cast of "Third Rock from the Sun" -- especially John Lithgow and that guy who's like the worst actor in the history of humankind; he squints and makes faces all the time...? I don't know his name but I would love to shove a red hot poker up his ass while he does some of that schtick...
Otherwise, I love everybody on TV...
'cause they're celebreties...
18 - Bob A. Booey
Oh my bad, Mark. I skimmed through the comments pretty fast, as I tend to do. I guess you kind of write like Eric Berlin a little bit because your tone passed for his in my mind :)
The biggest thing I've missed by not having cable the last few years is the NBA playoffs, which are almost entirely on cable now. That sucks. I miss the old days of the NBA on NBC having most of the key playoff matchups on broadcast TV almost every night after May sweeps ended and occasionally even during.
Shark's right about 3rd Rock. I hadn't thought of that one. John Lithgow used to be right there with Kurtwood Smith (now of "That 70s Show") as the typecast villians of all villains in action movies, but I think he laid the ground for Smith to become a lovable TV sitcom star as well. Lithgow's a Harvard grad with a theatre background, but his choice of work hasn't been intellectually exemplary.
That is all.
19 - Mark Sahm
Booey: Yeah, you can spend an entire month and a half watching all of the NBA Playoff games on TNT, and I did exactly that the last couple of years. Entertaining but yet an utter waste of forty nights.
BTW, would "Eric Berlin tone" be classifiable as a writing style? I'll try to sound more psychotic next time to differentiate myself.
20 - ss
The tv show I'd most like to see, that somebody already has killed themselves to make possible:
Grizzly Man: The Series
Nararated by Herzog of course
'the birds don't sing, they scream'
'there is a harmony in Nature, a perfect harmony of murder.'
21 - Cerulean
"The obvious answer is that you won't get much response
because, um, people you so sweetly inquire of have killed themselves.--Temple Stark"
They seem to be alive and kicking
The anguish of modern television viewing is such that the prospect of offing yourself is necessary while the actual act of doing so is uncommon. The alternative of turning off the TV and interacting with other humans has proved to be unacceptable over time. Some of the humans posting here demonstrate this.
Keep away for those super-violent DVD's now, :-)
22 - Mark Sahm
Why is interacting with others the alternative to watching TV? Alone time should never be about vegetating your life away in front of the set...
Just think, Cerulean--- in all the time you spent in front of the TV, you could have written your "Fellow Majestic Blue Tones of the World" novel, and you'd have something to show for it.
Instead, what do you (or anyone else for that matter, myself included) have for all of the time spent watching shows? Nothing. Maybe it's time for you to cut the cord again. But this time, unplug the set first. :)
23 - Duane
There's a good topic:
What would you have done instead of watching all those thousands of hours of TV?
I would have become a juggler. Darn it.
24 - Cerulean
I wrote a blues song (word and music), a short story, a poem and this piece in the last few days. Fairly productive, sometimes inspired by TV content. Do stuff, just don't like people. When go out--people! Doing stuff--often includes people! Icky!!!! Not shy, did try interacting with people repeatedly until they got so icky that had to find alternatives. Even on Blogcritics, problems often occur, because of, you guessed it, "people," loosely described in some cases. You last two posters, though you're better than average.
25 - no name
thye news controlled by the state crossroads have i got news for you ant music show most of channel 5 and almost any programme made really