Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
Happy days are here again… almost. The Olympics are finished, and, as you know, that pleases me to no end. No longer will I have to deal with watching athletes see their "lifelong" dreams shattered due to an inglorious fall. No longer will I have to hear people complain loudly — and do nothing — about China's human rights violations. No longer will my television be occupied with hours and hours of Olympics coverage (I think it may have been possible to watch more Olympics than there are hours in the day, and yet never the events I wanted and even if I caught a glimpse of the event I wanted to see it was never shown in full).
Instead, for the next two weeks my attention is going to be completely focused on the Democratic and Republican National Conventions (even if the networks aren't focused on it, I think my TV will be). Now, like the Olympics, I'm going to acknowledge the importance of the events – it's critical that we understand our world and what is taking place in it, if we can never really understand anything. It's just that it's all so heavily choreographed and that nothing real will actually be discussed (kind of like elections as a whole).
Plus, all the while, some guy in a room somewhere is yelling something like, "You drop those balloons when I tell you to drop those balloons or there'll be hell to pay. I swear to you if I see one piece of confetti drop before I tell you to drop that confetti, I'm going to turn you into confetti. Don't test me. Don't you test me. I will end you. I will end you." If they showed that guy and not the speeches, I'd be absolutely glued to the set. Probably it's the choreographed nature of the event and the lack of that guy in the room having a camera on him why the networks don't show that much coverage of the convention, why you have to go to PBS or a cable news network to see wall-to-wall coverage.
But, I keep telling myself that it's all okay, that the start of the new television season isn't all that far away. There are only a few weeks left until some of my old favorites return and new shows arrive to please and/or greatly disappoint me.
We've already talked a little about Monday nights this fall (and since then I've added My Own Worst Enemy to my list of shows to watch), and Tuesdays are pretty empty (save for a double-dose of FOX shows) and Wednesdays don't look much better. Right now, Wednesdays might only be Pushing Daisies and Knight Rider. That's right, I'm going to be watching Knight Rider. I really don't have that much faith that it will stay on the air for too long, so I don't feel like it's a huge commitment.
But, now I'm depressed by this too. I'm looking at five-and-a-half hours of TV on Mondays and then a mere two on Tuesday and two on Wednesday. Why can't it be a tad more even than that? You know it, and I know it, there's no way that I can watch all of that TV on Monday night and so some will bleed into Wednesday and Thursday. Thus, in the end, it will be more even, but it all just shows that the networks aren't planning with me in mind. And, I just don't understand why that is. Seriously, I don't. I'm a male aged 18-34 and I buy all the household odds and ends, surely I matter.
Those, as I indicated, are worries for another day. First, we have to get there.
