posted 2006/08/02 at 19:05
One way in which I notice myself maturing in a way that I don't feel comfortable is in my television-watching.
Back before the fire at the house we had DirecTV with all the special packages and cable, which was perhaps overkill, but it was nice. After the fire we only had cable at the hotel, then after we moved back here we didn't get cable again for another couple of years, which deprived me of the two channels I most wanted to watch (TechTV and Food Network).
Stuck with such limited selections, and not really having much time to watch television because I'd started school again, at first I fixated on Monday Night Football for reasons that I still don't really understand. All throughout that season ABC was advertising the remake of Dragnet starring Ed O'Neill that was going to start airing in the winter, so I caught that and thought that it did a tremendous job of bringing what I liked about the original Dragnet (which I used to catch on a regular basis back when it was a fixture on Nick at Nite) into the modern form, at least until Ethan Embry left and it turned into a bland ensemble drama. Still, that was the first time I'd watched a Dick Wolf series on a regular basis, and it hooked me enough that I started watching both Law and Order and SVU on a regular basis.
Eventually we got cable back, although I kept watching the two Law and Order series for a while, dropping the original season after Jerry Orbach passed away and the latter when I couldn't watch it due to a late-night class I was taking. (I still watch SVU reruns on USA Network and have three seasons of the show on DVD, but I don't make a point of catching the new episodes on NBC like I used to.) Having cable again was nice, but first TechTV got swallowed up by those bastards at G4, and then Food Network dropped the original Iron Chef in favour of its own, vastly inferior version. I'm probably not even going to watch the Red Wings as much as I used to now that the team has lost so many of its players from its latest run of glory (though I suspect the new players will begin their own run of glory here soon).
There are three shows that I still make a point of catching as often as possible: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. However, in all honesty, as much as I like the shows, I just have the feeling that I'm watching them less because I feel like watching them is a good use of my time, and more because I feel obligated to watch them because I'm a left-winger. I mean, anyone who read me back in the day knows that I've been a huge fan of Olbermann's since his SportsCentre days, and I believe that Countdown is the only hour of television on the major cable news networks worth watching, but more and more I find Olbermann to be engaging in the same kind of intellectual dishonesty that runs so rampant among right-wing talking heads like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, and even if I agree with Olbermann on a point I can't stand it when he uses dishonest arguments to bolster his case. (This is why you hardly ever see me writing about Michael Moore, because even if I agree with most of his points, he "proves" them using quite shady methods sometimes.)
I guess what bothers me is that when I was younger I'd always hear older people talking about how there was nothing but trash on television, and I felt obligated to point out that, although most of what was on television was garbage, there were still good shows out there -- some useful, some entertaining, a select few both -- if you just looked hard enough. I still believe that. However, at the same time, more and more I find myself just wishing that I didn't watch television so much, and devoted my time to more fulfilling pursuits. Like I said, I feel like I'm maturing, and maturing in a way that kind of makes me feel a little sad. I hope that makes some sense.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon