A new age of darkness

I'm going to do this in two parts, the first part will complain about the Writer's Guild of America strike. The second part will talk about some of my views on unions in general. the first part will probably be more entertaining, the second is more of a history lesson. Enjoy, or don't whatever.

Welcome back to the dark ages, where quality writing and programming takes a back seat to garbage on television. Or at least that's what I perceive, with the onset of this writer's strike that affects both Hollywood and television. Now it looks as though in a few weeks we will be subjected to a rash of reality television and worthless unimaginative game shows, both of which require no writing. I hate reality television, to even watch 15 minutes of the garbage makes me hate myself. The only reality show I watched with any consistency was "Joe Millionaire" which I only listened to over my shoulder as I worked at the computer in college. Also for some reason every person in my fraternity watched that show and we would all stream out into the hallways afterwards to gossip about what had occurred. The entire house would groan whenever something ludicrous or unbelievable happened on the show and we all acted like gossipy women in a hair salon when the subject came up around the lunch table. An entire house filled with mostly football players, talking about a reality television show...

I equally hate mindless game shows and talent competitions. Things like "Jeopardy" are acceptable because it is not mindless chance or luck that drives the game. However besides "Jeopardy" it is difficult to think of any prime time game shows that have come out in the last 2ish years that require any skill other then making a blind choice and coming up lucky. I guess maybe "Are you smarter then a 6th grader" or whatever it is called, I never saw it. The point is that any game show that requires nothing more then backing your way though a trial by absolute luck is worthless to me, and I suspect a large number of my peers. Talent shows like "American Idol" will continue but I've never been a fan, and frankly I'd be relieved if I never had to know that something as dumb as "Kidnation" ever existed. So basically this strike leaves a situation where one of two possibilities.

1) We get a mindless rash of game shows and reality television, and network television falls to darkness forever. I had thought this possibility had been killed in the early 2000's but the guild of writer's apparently is a vessel of some cult that wishes to bring on the apocalypse. In just a few short months our society will burn in the flames of stupidity and mindlessness in the absence of intelligent discourse on television (hahahaha that's a total oxymoron, intelligent discourse on television, haha). Not to say that many of the sitcoms were terribly intelligent, but some of them required the audience think for more then two seconds before slapping their ham fisted appendages together in glee.

2) Network television begins to show some of the successful shows from the cable networks they own. This is an interesting possibility, because it means that some of the more interesting shows that are around could be shown to a wider audience and the national stage. They wouldn't be new episodes, but the reruns would be new to a large part of the viewing public, who are too afraid to try and distance themselves from the mild warmth and comfort that network stations provide. Unfortunately for me I actually go out and seek the alternate cable shows that I might like and I wouldn't watch their reruns on network television (Unless they start showing Firefly or Eureka reruns…maybe "Nip/Tuck" and that show is fucked up from the two episodes I've seen). But overall it might get some of these shows to become a permanent staple on network television and that probably couldn't hurt.

For some reason I think we're far more likely to be doomed to the first possibility, in which case I should begin getting my worldly affairs in order. The next update will talk about Unions in general. It is much less entertaining.