I’ve watched a few episodes only because I was channel surfing and I saw a train wreck in the making. Now out of all the episodes that I have seen, only one man looked like he was going to have the possibility of a successful relationship. I only got to see a brief clip of one episode where I told my wife, “Hey, that’s the guy on Celebrity Rehab.”
What I keep wondering about is why this matchmaker doesn’t fix these people up before presenting them to potential dates. Some of these people need a brutal and honest personality assessment and maybe a beauty or character makeover. On the other hand, why doesn’t she put the people who want to meet a millionaire through an intensive charm school? I would think that if my job was a matchmaker I would try to improve the possibilities.
If you’re a fan of the genre, were the relevant ducks to be all in a row you would have not nearly so much to talk about with your fellow fans (not meaning you personally, mutepointe - I know better). Even if you don’t talk about it, I’m pretty sure that in any case the logic is entirely, and only, about setting up a human disaster for the gawking. Unfortunately.
As a matter of fact, just a few minutes ago on my drive home I was thinking about this very topic; about why I don’t watch shows like that, why I don’t know who Snooki is, why the letters “TMZ” are unmeaningful in having any promise of a voyeur’s escapism for me, and why is it that I can’t be bothered to give a rat’s tush about the whole phenomenon, and it came down to this: So long as brutish vapidity, mere money, and the vanity of the undeserving are promoted as the sine qua non of glamor and media attention in my “culture” - such as it has descended to - I can’t watch, or I’ll shoot my television. Now, that would be great drama, and like the shows, just as pointless. But unlike the shows, it would cost me simoleons and probably time in the clink. Luckily for me I don’t find myself presented with a dilemma about it.
I think if you got an agent, I think you could sell the idea. 3 contestants and a wall full of TV’s. Each contestant has a firearm with a limited number of bullets. They get to shoot at the TV’s with pilot reality shows until the least obnoxious pilot reality TV show is left. That’s the show that gets to be a series or at least a season.
I know I should want better TV and I do watch serious TV but I can not help but watch the occasional train wreck. I have come to the conclusion that people just want to be on TV no matter what. I am embarassed for them because they are obviously not embarassed for themselves.
Back in the 80’s this kind of thing would have been on Geraldo or Maury Povich. TV is what I watch DVDs on. With the increase of commercials, try watching an episode of MASH or any other pre-80’s show. Hacked up as bad as a 30 minute version of the Ring Cycle.
Seems to me you should maybe rewrite that as “MY (meaning your) obsession with guns”; in a country where guns are almost readily available, I don’t think about it enough to even have a gun. And as it happens, I don’t. So, I couldn’t possibly be obsessed. But I would go out and buy one just for the purpose of shooting my television if it came to that; the idea is just so…right. As for the crossbow idea, no. Not so much. Yes, it’s fiddly and medieval and probably all sorts of fun if you’re into mail codpieces and crying out “Zounds!” and such, but that’s nowhere near the point: most importantly, a crossbow doesn’t go “BANG”.
Oh, you mean the one that reads “Power” but all it does is turn the TV on or off? Boy, did they oversell that one.
You, sir, are definitely a redblooded 'Merkin. But I fear you may have overestimated popular good taste; the way things seem to be going, I’m at the point where I wouldn’t trust a lot of people to be the ones to let the least offensive show survive. Not without rigorous prior screening, anyway.
It’s very much the same as why I can’t bear to watch Don Knotts or Jim Carrey with those unflatteringly way-over-the-top and painfully dorky shticks of theirs. But at least they are just acting.
Don Knotts is a native of Morgantown, WV. You sir, have mocked hallowed ground.
I think you’re right about overestimating folks though. The most offensive show will be the one that will win. And though I have only shot a rifle one time, because my best friend couldn’t believe I never shot any type of firearm, so he got his brother to show me how to shoot a rifle, crossbows and even trebucets would be so wrong for this contest. A substantial gun is needed.
Please. I did not mock. Although I was honest (and too brutally, as you evidently must think), I was also careful to be as politely neutral as accurate depiction allows, and decidedly was not making fun of him (that would be the height of bad form, for he is no longer bodily among us, and to top that off he remains an institution in comic acting besides) in describing why he makes my skin crawl. In fact, I think that that was always his professional intent on-screen: to be that person you feel embarrassed for. I don’t handle that style well, for I identify with it too closely for comfort.
Jim Carrey made one movie that I liked, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I’ll never understand why they cast him for the role, but he played the role well.
