Thursday , March 28 2024
I know that people love watching the Olympics, for me, it just ruins everything else.

With the Olympics, My Summer TV Doldrums Worsen

In a little less than two weeks, the Olympics start… and I'm already depressed. No, really, the Olympics depress me.

I admire what these people do; they are, without a doubt, some of the best athletes in the whole world. They've worked hard to do what they do and have reached the pinnacle of their sport. It's admirable. It's incredible.

But, why does it have to ruin my television viewing?

The Olympics come, NBC and all of the NBCU cable channels air hours on end of the games and, the other networks don't counter-program it. I have to suffer through two weeks of repeats and nonsense in the already weak summer season. It's virtually unbearable. Plus, the events that I actually enjoy during the games aren't what's shown during primetime. Am I not a consumer? Am I not a desirable demographic?

Here I am, all excited and happy about Monk being back on and Psych being back on. Then, my enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that Doctor Who is ending its season and that we'll only have five two-hour movies to look forward to next year (or maybe a little later depending on when they actually get done). And now? The Olympics. It's almost enough to make me cry.

Don't think I'm joking. I'm not.

Why, I beg of you, why? Why does this have to happen now? Didn't I already suffer through a writers' strike which pretty much destroyed last season and (if we're going to be honest with ourselves) could put a damper on this season as well? Couldn't they have delayed the Olympics by a year, you know, let me recover from the writers' strike before ending my viewing prospects for another two weeks?

I sat around last night trying to figure out what I'm going to do during primetime during the Olympics. I'm thinking that I might sit down and re-watch The Prisoner. Also, I just rejoined Netflix and they now do this "download and watch your movie right now" thing, and they have tons of old Doctor Who there to be downloaded.

But, there's something to be said for watching actual television, current television, and no amount of old Doctor Who and original The Prisoner is going to assuage that need. It just isn't, it can't. They're both great series and all, but there's no need to hold the remote, there's no need to fast forward through the commercials and those are integral parts of the television watching process.

Man, I'm so upset about this whole thing that I can't even begin talking about the return of Mad Men last night, and I truly enjoyed that. What a great show that is. I disliked the use of Chubby Checker at the start of the episode because I thought that it was a little too wink-wink (what with the first season being on last summer and the song being "Let's Twist Again" which talks about how we should "twist again like we did last summer" and that we should "twist again like we did last year"). I like the song, and it's the right time period, etc., but it just felt too wink-wink.

See? The Olympics are ruining Mad Men for me, and that's not okay.

About Josh Lasser

Josh has deftly segued from a life of being pre-med to film school to television production to writing about the media in general. And by 'deftly' he means with agonizing second thoughts and the formation of an ulcer.

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