Oh I am so not done talking about technology. Let's talk television. As I mentioned previously, I grew up with a black and white television that was 19" size. It had a rotary dial and worked just fine. The television season ran from September to June each year and we had a whopping THREE channels to choose from if you don't include PBS which was always a little fuzzy on our T.V. and mostly showed religious programs or symphonies. We had ABC, NBC and CBS to pick from as our stations and everyone had the same stations which were 3, 8 and 12. Everyone had an antenna on their roof to get reception with the occasional aluminum foil on the actual indoor T.V. antenna to sharpen the picture. This was it! We were happy! Period. End of story.
Nowadays, you can have as many as 800 channels and you can have any number of ways to get the channels. You can have cable or Internet or dishes or whatever. No more antennas and no more tin foil. You don't even have to get off the couch to change the channel because we have remotes! Then you have "packages" for selecting what channels you want out of the 800 or more that are offered. You can choose basic or silver or gold or "extreme" for the ultimate couch potato. You can choose movie channel packages perhaps just one or two or all of them! You can get music, sports, shopping or reality shows. You can get it all or just a part of it. And of course, you have to decide if you want your local channels too. You can order special sporting events for an extra price. Not to mention that you can get a television that is just about any size and shape you can imagine. You can even get one as big as the wall in your den with surround sound and all the bells and whistles. And now it just isn't in vivid color it has high definition color. Wow! The television is now a world of multiple choices not just those lousy THREE choices and one size fits all screen that I remember. So we should all be so happy and entertained, shouldn't we? I don't know how you feel about it but why is it that with all of the choices and all of the channels there is NOTHING on television?
I don't want to really buy anything off of T.V. so all of the shopping shows are not for me. I will admit that I have bought a few things in the past but I stopped doing that altogether. I am a person who wants to see and touch what I am buying not just look at it on the tube. I also think you can get totally suckered into to buying stuff you don't need and it can get you in trouble if you aren't careful. The shopping channels make it seem "too easy" to buy things with their easy payment plans. Before you know it those little payments can turn into a big payment each month. That isn't for me. I am not much of a sports fan either so the sports programs aren't for me. I do understand that lots of people do follow sports so that is cool for them and I am glad they can follow their favorite team. I just don't need 20 sports channels. Then you have the soap operas that not only play during the daytime but repeat at night, and the nostalgic shows like The Golden Girls, Happy Days and many others that are in reruns on different channels. You have the cartoons and the kids shows which are numerous and if I ever have to watch "The Suite Life on Deck" or "The Wizards of Waverly Place" again with my grand kids I think I will scream. I think there is probably a channel that plays shows that didn't really make it in syndication but they are out there anyway and come on at some time during the day or night. If they didn't make it the first time then why would you play them now? My biggest beef is the reality shows. I am so against reality shows it isn't funny. I don't mean the reality shows that are a contest like "Hell's Kitchen, "Dancing with the Stars" or "American Idol" or my personal favorite "So You Think You Can Dance". Those reality shows are okay. I mean the reality shows like "The Real Housewives of ...wherever". Why would I want to watch that? Or do I really care what Tori and Dean are doing this week? Do I care about the Kardashians? Or the some group of bad girls or guys or weirdos doing whatever from wherever? NO!!! Absolutely not! Why do I want to watch them fight and argue and snip at each other and cheat and back stab? Why is that even considered entertainment? I don't care...never cared...have no room to care about such stupidity. I have enough drama in my own life why do I want to watch someone else's? No thank you. Oh and then there is that other group of reality shows...Intervention, Hoarders, Animal Hoarders and "I am so fat I can't get out of my bed" shows. I am not callous about the problems that any of these people have. I understand that they need help and they have a REAL problem. But, why is it necessary to expose their difficulty to the television public? Why would the person with the problem want to be totally exposed? I don't understand that at all. Is the viewing public on a path of wanting to see people suffer? Are we headed for that time when we want to see people die on national T.V.? Really? Is that where we are headed?
When I watch television, I would like to be entertained. I would like for there to be 26 NEW episodes of shows that I like that are interesting and have real actors and a real story. Remember knowing that Gunsmoke would be on every Sunday night? The anticipation of wanting to know if Miss Kitty and Marshall Dillon would tell each other they were in love? Remember that? Or remember Richie Cunningham and wondering what trouble he would get into with Ralph and Potsie and how was Fonzie going to save the day .... again? Or how about watching Dick Van Dyke trip over the ottoman every opening credit for his show? It was always funny. And Lucy...oh my...what shenanigans was she going to get into? Even Star Trek...what adventure this week...maybe more Tribbles?! Who knew! It was entertaining. These shows took you away from everyday life and put you into their world. It was fun and exciting and, oh!!!, I must NOT forget Mission Impossible...not the one with Tom Cruise (yuk) or the one with Robert Irvine. The REAL Mission Impossible with Peter Graves and Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Now that was a GREAT show and I got permission to stay up late and watch it because it ran on a school night. I miss all of that. Don't you? There are a few good shows on these days with very good actors and I do seek these shows out and make sure I watch them. The problem is that they are few and far between and the rest of the television schedule is filled with dribble.
A lot of times I choose to watch a repeat of one of the good shows because it is a whole lot better than anything else out there. So the bottom line for me is that even though we can now have up to 800 channels on television, are we really better off and being entertained more? Nope. I think the THREE channels did a much better job and television was actually worth watching. How about you?
Until next time,
Anne
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