Lately my girlfriend and I have discovered that quality TV that both of us can stand is difficult to come across. Sure, there are some excellent shows like Breaking Bad that come across 13 weeks out of the year. But that's a paltry 13 hours per year, and maybe 5 shows are even worth that small bit of commitment. The Killing might be good, but so far it's slow and boring. Mad Men is awful and I don't get its success. Setting alone does not make a show good, I'm sorry to inform you. Justified is allegedly pretty good but its not really going to draw my girlfriend in. The Walking Dead might be the best show on TV, but there have only been six episodes and it's a show about fricking ZOMBIES. Since the start of 2010 we've lost:
Lost: I didn't watch it but Lord knows the rest of the country did so it counts: Ended
Terriers: A really good show with a really terrible title that no one watched: Canceled
24: The end of an era, and not a moment too soon: Ended
Two and a Half Men: It's easy to hate on this show because it's so formulaic yet so popular, but I pretty much watch the syndicated old episodes every night because it is entertaining and there really aren't any alternatives when it's on: Star Meltdown/permanent change
Guiding Light/All My Children: Just kidding: Canceled.
I'm no TV critic but that's three shows I did watch and a fourth I could have theoretically been watching suddenly removed from the system. So between the sporadic nature of TV airing and the removal of a bunch of good shows at once, we had to do something, so we become Netflix instant view customers. This was an awesome decision, at first. It enabled us to watch:
Damages: Good, not great, show that evidently is Satellite-only now for some reason.
Prison Break: Thoughtless drivel (at least after about the first 10 episodes, which are very well written) that jumps the shark but is still entertaining.
Arrested Development: 2nd best sitcom ever after Seinfeld.
Cheers: 3rd best sitcom ever.
Sons of Anarchy: Looking forward to watching this even though I couldn't care less about motorcycles or the people that ride them.
And that's basically it. It's a bunch of stuff I've now already seen and one new show I'm only somewhat excited about. The movies on there generally suck, with an occasional random gem. So what does that leave us to watch? Should we get HBO again? When we had it, it kinda sucked and I don't miss it. The Wire and The Sopranos were worth extra money. Treme, Game of Thrones, and Boardwalk Empire aren't. So HBO's out.
Obviously I watch plenty of sports. But sports are not on 24/7, only bad talking head shows about sports play all the time. Not to mention the dirty little secret that about 80% of sporting events are dead time or commercials, unless you use a DVR, in which case less time is wasted and the problem with finding something to watch ends up becoming accordingly compounded. So what's left? Together, my girlfriend and I can watch either:
A: Law and Order: SVU: Does this show really need an explanation? Always watchable, never great, a time-killer.
B: Game Shows: Wheel, Jeopardy, and Family Feud are the only ones watchable, and Price Is Right comes on at a terrible time and obviously isn't worth recording.
C: Reality TV: And this is the part where I want to get rid of cable and work on an oil-rig or something.
Reality TV essentially distills the worst parts of our nation's culture into 30 minute segments that are such train wrecks that you can't look away. Obviously, there are a few shows that are a little bit better than that. You have American Idol, where teenagers look to fast track music careers, and obviously that's fine, even if it's unwatchable live and you have to fast forward 40 minutes of every hour with the DVR. You have The Real World, where seven or eight really stupid young adults, often with personal problems that no one gives a shit about, come together in a major city to fight with one another and fail to hold their liquor. You have Jersey Shore, which was quite entertaining at first until these people became celebrities and got really stale. And you have The Real World/Road Rules challenge shows, which are constantly riveting and should be on twice a week year-round like professional wrestling. Apparently, people still watch Survivor, the Apprentice, and The Amazing Race, but I only watch those if I'm trying to fall asleep at 9:30.
Then, there are the celeb-drama reality shows like Surreal Life, Celebrity Rehab, Real Housewives of *insert stupid place that's trying to be stereotyped here*, and anything involving a Kardashian. The Kardashian shows are so scripted that they might as well be sitcoms, only they're so bad that they couldn't get away with being sitcoms. These are all so unwatchable that they fail to merit any discussion at all.
And then there are the shows that we watch, not because they're good, but because there's nothing else on: Hoarders, My Strange Addiction, Freaky Eaters, Taboo, Sister Wives, and a show I've always hated but now watch because of all the above reasons discussed: COPS.
Here's my rundown of each show. Is that something you might be interested in?
Hoarders: I've tweeted this before; if you need to feel better about your own life, you should watch this show, because there are always bigger losers than you. Basically, this show depicts people as having some void in their life, and then deciding it's a great idea to fill that void with either material possessions, animals, or both. In actuality, it shows that people are too god-damn lazy to take their trash out, and/or too god-damn stupid to realize their trash is actually trash. Either way, years pass, their homes are unlivable, they have no social life at all, their families hate them, and this show is in no way depressing. The people that hoard animals are 100 times worse. There's one episode where this obese man has like 35 rabbits destroying his house, that he's renting from unsuspecting yuppies. The man shouldn't just be evicted, he should be jailed for destruction of property, but instead he has a "disorder". They clean the house up, he gets therapy, and he STILL GETS TO LIVE THERE! Another lady lives on disability but can't stop adopting dogs from a shelter, to the point where she can't feed or clothe her teenage daughter. Most of the animal episodes are about cat ladies, which again, merit no discussion.
My Strange Addiction: This show takes on people that can't stop violating a social norm. One episode involves a college-age girl that isn't bad looking who is unable to stop sucking her thumb. My prediction for her life is that she ends up adopting 30 cats and is featured on Animal Hoarders, giving her the rare distinction of being a two-time reality TV loser. Another episode features a she-male that can't stop bodybuilding. My question is, are not all bodybuilders addicted to bodybuilding? Is that not required to actually be a bodybuilder? Does addiction have any real meaning at all in this case? But the best episode of this show, or any show really, features this gem of a human being:
You're probably wondering if what she's got in her hand headed to her mouth is in fact what it looks like. Well, it is. This woman eats toilet paper. And apparently a lot of it. A half a roll a day according to the show. She apparently likes the way it dissolves in her mouth. So naturally my girlfriend and I, with our "don't knock it until you try it" mantra, decide that we too would like to experience the alleged magic of eating toilet paper. Our verdict: it's really gross and quite possibly the dumbest behavior one can engage in. It's basically like eating cotton, and your gag reflex immediately kicks on. Unless you're this woman, who must be incredible at oral sex since she clearly has no gag reflex at all.
Freaky Eaters: Basically it's just My Strange Addiction, but limited to weird eating habits, like drinking 30 sodas a day. Difficult to try something like that without ending up in the hospital. Maybe one day I'll try to drink 30 MGD cans, at least I'll be drunk and sick, as opposed to just sick. And no, I don't drink MGD, it was just the first shitty beer that popped into my head.
Taboo: This show tends to involve disgusting rituals of aboriginal tribes, such as the tribe that covers their young boys with thousands of tiny cuts so that the scarring looks like croc scales. Because that sounds fun and attractive. I would totally not fight a guy from that tribe though, they can't possibly think anything hurts after going through that. Basically, this show is an exercise in trying not to vomit.
Sister Wives: This show documents the lives of a Mormon polygamist family. It was interesting for about 10 minutes, but it turns out that Mormons, while extremely nice people, aren't very fun to watch on TV. The idea behind the show is to answer questions about a polygamist lifestyle, but it fails to answer any of my questions, such as:
1. How does a guy go about dating when he is already married to three other women? Does he essentially say to the first three wives: "Bitches, you're not pleasing me, so I'm going to go date a 24 year old and then MARRY HER and bring her into this home with you."? How does that work?
2. How does a guy afford four luxury automobiles and a mansion when he has four wives and twenty kids? Was he a Mormon pop-star from the eighties that no one knows about?
3. How does a guy manage to be confident enough to land his wives without any help from alcohol or drugs? This question would probably be answered by the answer to question two.
So, not unlike Terriers, they got the name of the show wrong. The show should be called "Biggest Badass Ever", if "badass" were an appropriate word for a Mormon person to use or be described as, which it isn't. Again, it's possible these questions I have would have been answered had I kept watching, but I was too busy catching reruns of COPS to stick with it.
COPS: Only the greatest show of all time. As you know, during this program, either a COP is being a huge dick to minorities, or someone does something incredibly stupid that gets them arrested. No one looks good on this show. And then of course, Campus P.D. takes the effective COPS formula and waters it down to show rent-a-cops citing 19 year olds for underage consumption, which is a stupid law that will never be changed because no one over 21 gives a shit. Where Campus P.D. shines is that in approximately 70 percent of all clips there is a hot, scantily-clad co-ed that is being questioned or detained, which is a decided upgrade from scantily-clad meth-toothed old people. So there's that.
Enjoy your weekend!
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