My god, it's full of bullshit. Everything on TV is this pseudodocumentary reality shit.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

Every show is made up of hand-held shots of someone doing something stupid or mundane alternating with studio shots of someone reacting to the stupid or mundane shit.

What. The. Fuck?

[seabeyond]

1. i just went down stairs and saw hubby watching bounty hunter.

i was repulsed, lol, appalled. the bounty hunter. watching the bounty hunter??? no way.

he says, that or Ax man. lol. how many friggin channels to watch on tv and that is what he is reduced to.

i dont watch tv. i read

why

cause the choice seems to be the bounty hunter and ax man

i hear ya

[yankeepants]

3. I'm with you there

I cannot believe that people watch that crap and actually buy into it that it is "reality" . The second that a camera is pointed at someone reality is out the window.

I read.

[rurallib]

2. We are in the era of Max Headroom.

[TK421]

7. that show was prophetic n/t

[Dulcinea]

4. Because they cost nothing to produce.

Movies, sitcoms, etc., require actors & a real production crew, all of which costs money. At the end of its run, each episode of "Friends" cost $11 million!

Garbage reality shows require nothing but someone with a camera & amateurs. The networks & production companies make money hand over fist. That's why so much of this crap is on every channel.

[tigereye]

5. you noticed!

:rofl: Sorry, I reacted the same way. Most of TV is a wasteland. I just watch PBS, History channel and various sports events.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. I didn't mean to sound so naive. I actually have a bachelors in broadcasting and while I...

... never worked in the field professionally (having figured out early on that the assholes I knew in class would be the same assholes I'd eventually be working for) I maintained an interest in media developments.
I knew this reality crap was all over the place because it's cheap and easy to produce. And I'd realized it had even gotten to the point of being parodied on sitcoms (Office, Modern Family, ...) but last night it just hit me like a ton of bricks: there's almost nothing else on.

My viewing habits run toward news/talk, movies, off-beat comedy, and some Adult Swim-type toons.
Last night I was running through the basic cable channels expecting to find the Cubs game. It wasn't on, so in the process I got exposed to toxic levels of really bad TV-- the junk I normally surfed past quickly on my way to my regular stuff.

My worry is that, while TV has gone through genre overkill over the years (think Westerns and Variety Shows in particular), this one, being so cheap, may be TV's crack or meth addiction. So impossible to kick that it kills the medium as we know it. Maybe that's a good thing.

[tigereye]

15. I was just teasing...

TV now is like the worst Weekly World News, or those shows where really sad and disturbed people fight and swear at and try to annihilate (sp?) each other. :(

[TK421]

8. Now I just watch the Game Show Network...I love the old 70's episodes

and early 80's shows on there.

[Bucky]

9. On the other hand, books are just as good as they've always been.

Too bad they don't make quality tv shows like Barnaby Miller or Mannix.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

11. Barnaby Miller? Is that the one about the septegenarian police captain?

[redqueen]

10. Yeah... the vast majority of stuff on tv is absolute crap...

but Supernatural is good. :)

[Kutjara]

12. Netflix video streaming has been my salvation.

There are tons of great documentaries, classic and foreign films, and a wide selection of good TV shows, all for the reasonable subscription price of $8/month. I rarely bother to get them to send me a movie on DVD, because there's so much good stuff available instantly. Since I've been using Netflix, I've hardly watched "real" TV at all.

[seigi]

13. what else there to watch

I mean everything on TV is fail then why buy cable?? Personally I watch all the shows on HBO/Showtime and AMC. Treme isn't bad nor is Breaking Bad. U just have to wade through the crap to get the diamonds that's all

[hvn_nbr_2]

14. Definition of "reality TV":

A bunch of people who would never be together in reality go somewhere that they would never go in reality and do things that they would never do in reality. That's why CorpoMedia calls it "reality," 'cuz it ain't real.

(Odd side note: The Firefox spell checker thinks "ain't" is okay but "'cuz" isn't okay.)

[Gold Metal Flake]

16. H/T for 2010 reference.