By Nina Berry Mar 16, 2006, 19:08 GMT
There are so many reasons to hate television. The list below is just the tip of the iceberg – ten reasons to turn off the set and get a life. I’ve picked a few obvious ones, but also stretched myself to look beyond. I feel a special hatred for Joey, Charmed, and One Tree Hill, but they are all probably leaving us very soon, so I left them off the list.
1. E! – aka “The Shallow Channel” shows us the worst of our celebrity-worshipping, boob-obsessed, overweight society. Whether you’re glorying in the downfall of Milli Vanilli on True Hollywood Story or trying to find inspiration in Top 100 Celebrity Slimdowns, E! is guaranteed to make you feel unloved, fat, and yet somehow superior to all those rich, food-obsessed, plastic surgery-addicted celebrities.
2. Fox News –So much for the myth of the liberal media. Fox News shamelessly flauts its extreme conservative bias 24/7. If you want actual journalism, look elsewhere. There is one good thing about Fox; its hideous O’Reilly Factor spawned the satiric Colbert Report on Comedy Central. You’ll get better news and opinion watching Colbert any night rather than O’Reilly.
3. The Unit – Haven’t seen it. But how can a series about men with guns be any good when the title makes you giggle?
4. America’s Next Top Model – This show is like a traffic accident, so awful you can’t look away. Hostess Tyra Banks pontificates, she shouts, she struts, she belittles – all with the gravitas of a world leader signing a peace treaty. We’re not curing cancer here, we’re doing something more important, learning how to pose for photos in a muddy field with feathers on your head and a cow nibbling your bum.
5. Antiques Roadshow -- Last week I praised PBS as one of the reasons to watch TV. It’s only fair to find the chink in their otherwise glowing armor with this dull, venal show, wherein pack rats hope the junk they dug out of their attic turns out to be worth its weight in gold. It’s like The Price is Right, without the “Come on down!”
6. CSI/Lost/Greys’ Anatomy/Desperate Housewives – I had to pick something controversial, didn’t I? These shows frustrate me because they are on the verge of being great but too often descend into mediocrity. CSI eschews character development for grotesques. Lost drags out the tiniest events, leaves you hanging, then goes back in time to show those irritating events from another angle. Grey’s Anatomy has far too many montages to the latest soulful music in place of real writing, and is about as realistic as Desperate Housewives, where a bunch of hateful women go through tried and true soap opera dilemmas without treating us to the rich, bitchy dialogue we all secretly long for.
7. HSN and QVC – Want to be prettier? Slimmer? More insecure? Watch one of these shopping channels, which cheerfully prey on those at home with a fistful of credit cards and enormous self-doubt. This is American consumerism at its worst – where cheery hostesses assure you that the latest product will Change. Your. Life! All in just three easy payments of $39.99.
8. Wife Swap – The title alone is an experience in misogyny. Why not Husband Swap? Child Swap? Grandma Swap? This is reality programming at its worst. Let’s pick out America’s most dysfunctional women, find their equally dysfunctional opposite, and put them in each other’s place. This show is clearly manipulated and scripted to bring out the very worst in all its participants. Yes, it’s very common for the producers of these shows to tell the “actors” to do a scene over again, only with more drama and venom. Wife Swap uses this sort of manipulation to make us hate these women and feel better about ourselves in the process. Ugly stuff.
9. Deal or no Deal – There’s no “game” to this game show. People obviously chosen for their ability to whoop select anonymous suitcases, hoping to get the one with that holds the big money. Or they can opt out for a guaranteed sum. Ho hum. At least with Let’s Make Deal, Monty Haul gave you stuff if you had a coat hanger or a stick of gum on you. This show proves the adage stated in the brilliant movie Quiz Show – people don’t watch game shows to see smart people answer tough questions; they come to watch the money.
10. 700 Club – Pat Robertson shills and lectures for his version of God every night on ABC Family. This is where he called for assassinations of world leaders, blamed Hurricane Katrina on gays, and warned Dover PA that it better not come crying to God if He smote them after they tossed out an evolutionarily challenged school board . This is Hate TV, tricked out in pretty Bible wrapping.
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