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What has become of my TV?! (6-7-4)

My watch list for the week:

  1. The Sopranos
  2. The Dead Zone
  3. Deadwood
  4. Monster House
  5. Family Plots
  6. Monster Garage
  7. American Chopper
  8. Touching Evil
  9. Last Comic Standing (twice)
  10. The Jury
  11. The Shield
  12. Celebrity Poker Showdown
  13. Degrassi: The Next Generation
(Plus The Daily Show four times but that?s a ?News? show so I?ll leave that off the list for the discussion at hand.)

A busy week for me, of late. And there are certain details to note, obviously:

6 scripted shows, 7 reality shows. True enough, so-called reality television is taking over the networks and has already taken over a lot of basic cable (hell, basic cable was the home of reality television before we named it as a genre). And, true enough, it?s June, normally a quagmire of television and only recently becoming something more as networks program more like cable and lose the normal August to May season. But, still, there?s something wrong here.

Consider:

  1. The Sopranos (1 hour)
  2. The Dead Zone (1 hour)
  3. Deadwood (1 hour)
  4. Monster House (1 hour)
  5. Family Plots (1/2 hour)
  6. Monster Garage (1 hour)
  7. American Chopper (1 hour)
  8. Touching Evil (1 hour)
  9. Last Comic Standing (2 hours, twice)
  10. The Jury (2 hours)
  11. The Shield (1 hour)
  12. Celebrity Poker Showdown (2 hours)
  13. Degrassi: The Next Generation (1/2 hour)
Those 6 scripted shows will amount to 7 1/2 hours while those 7 reality shows will amount to 9 1/2. (to be fair, knowing Last Comic Standing is starting off with two 2-hour blocks this week, I?m not sure I?ve got the stamina to care, even though I enjoyed last year.

2 network shows, 11 cable shows. Network television is dying. Cable shows don?t need the huge audiences networks demand, so you get more interesting (read: not dumbed down for the mass audience) fare. Hell, next week, Six Feet Under takes The Sopranos? place on the list and Nip/Tuck and Monk will join up this month as well (and I wish I had Showtime to watch Dead Like Me). Upcoming network shows look like crap. We?ve got The Simple Life 2, losing the one thing that made the first season watchable (the family that had to put up with the brainless leads), a couple scripted shows about Hawaii, or maybe the beach neighborhoods of California--I?m not quite sure, as I zone right out when the ads come on?on, I think, Fox and the WB. Network television is a homogenized wasteland of crap so bad that anyone can watch it and not even care if they?re really entertained and certainly don?t care if they are intrigued or enlightened.

So, what am I watching again?

  1. The Sopranos (HBO)
  2. The Dead Zone (USA)
  3. Deadwood (HBO)
  4. Monster House (Discovery)
  5. Family Plots (A&E)
  6. Monster Garage (Discovery)
  7. American Chopper (Discovery)
  8. Touching Evil (USA)
  9. Last Comic Standing (NBC)
  10. The Jury (FOX)
  11. The Shield (FX)
  12. Celebrity Poker Showdown (Bravo)
  13. Degrassi: The Next Generation (Noggin)
And, to be sure, I?m already considering dropping the NBC show and, despite its pedigree, I?m not too hopeful about the FOX show.

Further notes:

The Shield, Touching Evil and Deadwood will be ending their seasons soon and the Sopranos ended its season with this week?s episode last night. As mentioned, Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck and Monk will be airing (and watched by me) this month. Despite the network trash, there are shows worth watching. But, they are getting rarer and rarer. And, even former television obsessives like me are drifting almost exclusively to cable and sampling ?reality? shows. Television as we?d like to know it is gone; it?s not on its way out, it?s already gone.