Modern Television Lacks the Fun of Previous Generations

For my last column, I thought I would tackle a subject that is near and dear to my heart—television. Specifically, why television seems to be in such a quality nosedive

Television since its inception has served as a sort of cultural barometer in America. If that still holds true, we’re looking at a long period of bad, bad storms on the horizon. If you need proof, just look at the OJ Simpson trial.

No this is not another article on the Simpson case, or the coverage. It’s about the 12 men and women who play the most pivotal role in this drama—the jury. The Simpson jurors are going to be sequestered during the course of the trial, and their exposure to media sources will be carefully monitored. This is meant to keep the jurors from being exposed to TV or radio materials which may skew their outlook on the trial and its participants.

For a while, Judge Lance Ito was considering a total media blackout for the jurors, but instead asked them to list the three shows they could not live without. If the shows were acceptable, the jurors would be allowed to watch. The jurors were polled, and the results were, at best, disturbing. Just under half the jurors noted that the Home Shopping Network was something they could not live without on a day-to-day basis.

The Home Shopping Network.

Now, I generally have little sympathy for OJ Simpson. But I think that, if nothing else, he is entitled to a fair trial by a jury of his peers. I can’t help but think that it’s somewhat disconcerting for OJ, sitting alone in his cell, to gaze up at the ceiling and realize that his fate, his freedom, will be decided by a group of people who make a habit of ordering cubic zirconia and abdominizers by phone.

A few years ago, a television critic for People magazine called television a “vast wasteland.” Now, while we all know that People has no room to besmirch the relative intellectual merits of anything this side of “Bass Masters,” the point is nevertheless valid. The American attention span has been whittled to the point where it rivals that of a hyperactive five-year-old rampaging through the Hershey factory with an intravenous feed of pure sugar (translation: it’s really short).

A lot of the blame for this lies at the feet of the television industry. TV is so bad nowadays that we as a nation can’t stand to watch anything for TOO long for fear of being overwhelmed by how worthless it is. Television has always had its share of crappy programming, but quality now seems the exception instead of the rule.

Television programming in America has been on a steady decline for a decade, a nosedive unparalleled by anything that isn’t a commuter shuttle.

At least in the old days, bad TV was fun and entertaining. I grew up on shows like “Knight Rider” and “The A-Team,” and I freely admit those shows were terrible. But at least they were entertaining. They were campy and fun, and even now I occasionally watch them in syndicated reruns. “Manimal” might have been bad, but it was bad in a hip way, like an Ed Wood movie. But bad TV now is just that: BAD. Unwatchable. Uncool.

Think about it. It is almost impossible to talk about what’s wrong with TV, because it’s so damn hard to figure out where to start. Do we start with the endless font of Aaron Spelling that the FOX network inundates us with on a weekly basis? The FOX programming guide is beginning to look like the first chapter in the book of Matthew.

“And ‘90210’ begat ‘Melrose Place,’ which sought refuge in the highlands and later begat ‘Models, Inc.’ which in turn begat ‘Party of Five,’ etc. etc.”

These pathetic attempts at angst filled youth drama are multiplying like Tribbles, feeding on themselves and rapidly draining the Enterprise grain silo we call pop culture until it is totally devoid of substance.

Then, of course, there’s the genre of programming I’ve come to call the Rikki Winfrey Raphael school of television. The syndicated talk show market has exploded in recent years. At current rates, every American citizen will have their own daily chat show by the year 2003*. And I will personally guarantee that they will all follow the exact same format: a panel made-up of one psychologist and 20 total freaks. The kind of deviant that years ago could only have found work in rural carny freak shows. Add an audience made up of bored, gregarious “everyday people,” and let them go at each other.

This sort of gladiatorial entertainment can be fun for about 5 minutes, but then it just becomes stomach churning. Is this really the best we as a society have to offer?

There are good shows out there, don’t get me wrong. But quality entertainment programming is becoming an endangered species. Until we start demanding better from the TV producers, until we raise the level that is the “lowest common denominator,” we will continue to be assaulted on all sides by programming that, in an ideal world, wouldn’t even be on cable access. For now, the quicksand of mediocrity will keep swallowing us up, and America looks likely to smile rapidly all the way into the mire.

Happy holidays.