Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

Remember when TV…

• Used to not have their logo in the bottom right corner.
• Used to not have animated promos for other shows at the bottom.
• Used to not have text promos for other shows they offer.
• Used to not have text information about the program you are watching.
• Used to actually let the credits roll at normal speed and full screen.
• Used to not interrupt shows for a high speed chase.
• Used to not throw the weather radar on top of the show you are watching during storms. (It may be necessary for a flood, tornado, hurricane, fire watch/warning, but its unnecessary for a thunderstorm).
• Used to have commercial breaks no more than 3 minutes.
• Used to not have so many promos for other shows they offer during commercial breaks.
• Used to use segways before, after and during commercial breaks.

It makes me wonder what else they will change or add in the future. I’ve already seen animated sponsors during a TV show in the bottom left corner before. I think eventually they will cut the intros short on TV shows or make limits to how long they can be. They already have programs that minimize the amount of silence in video by cutting out parts of the video to squeeze more time in. I think I’ve seen shows do that, because it seems that someone is always talking with no time to breathe. The bottom right logos might have been started to let people know what station they were on, but I think most people can care less. Or perhaps they were worried about people with VCRs recording their TV shows several years ago, but to me its just an annoyance.

Back in late October the My So Called Life DVD set was finally re-released. The old set was pretty hard to find and was sold on eBay for around $100 before this new release. The old set offered no bonus features, unless you got the Limited Edition that came with a lunchbox and bonus disc. I’m not sure what was included on that bonus disk.

The new DVD sets look much more polished and have a little booklet that comes with the set that goes over different things from the movie. Some of the bonus features include, interviews with the actors, writers and other staff behind the show, audio commentary that plays while the episode is showing, and dialogues between the writer Winnie Holzman and actress Claire Danes. All the cast is interviewed except Jared Leto. Some of the interesting tidbits are about what they had planned for the show if it had not been cancelled (I won’t ruin it for you here though). The old DVD set did not have any promotional ads for other DVDs, while the new set has some, but only on disc 1.

Main Screen Comparisons
The old set is on the left.

Setup Screen Comparisons
The old set is on the left.

Episodes Screen
Only the new DVD set has the episodes on a separate screen.

I really don’t know what the History Channel was thinking with their latest show Ice Road Truckers. What does it have to do with History? I guess they got the idea from The Deadliest Catch. There really isn’t much drama with a show like this, so the Reality Show probably won’t get watched much. These kind of tactics are what ended up making the Discovery Channel suck. Like I’ve said before, history is not boring to people that like history. So why do they want to abandon their audience? For a bigger more mainstream audience that isn’t into history. The History Channel was the one of the last stations not to get a reality show, but they finally caved in. They really have had some good programming, but I’m sure who ever is in charge now is going take it down the crapper.

I’m glad the Internet is going to kill TV, they are going to have to deal with people watching what shows are they see as the best and when they want.

I probably shouldn’t admit to having watched this show, but I saw most of it in reruns. Personally I think the Shear Genius finale should of had the following people:

• Taylor
• Tabatha
• Dr. Boogie

Funny how Tabatha caused herself and Taylor to get disqualified, by making a big deal about not liking him. If she had not mentioned all that infront of the judges, they might have made it to the end. Anyway, I guess thats why people watch Reality Shows, basically its fake mild drama, usually they focus in on 2 or three people that don’t get along and then ask them questions about trivial day to day things. Maybe it makes people’s normal hum drum days seem more interesting or maybe they relate to it more. Other than this show, the only other ones I saw were the Deadliest Catch and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, which was one of the first Reality Shows that wasn’t on MTV.

This was my favorite TV show when I was a child. After rewatching the series as an adult, I can’t believe I watched that show, the stories are really cheesy. Listening to the intro song again, was really funny to as it was way too 80s. I think it was cancelled due to the fact they didn’t have enough Misfits. The Ice Man was only in the pilot episode, and so right away they lost a Misfit. It was the only reason they had gotten the ice cream truck, they rode around in. Basically they were left with Johnny B., Gloria “Glo”, and Dr. Elvin to doing most of the action. The action became very predictable after awhile, you knew at some point Dr. Elvin was going to have to shrink, Glo would have to do some mental power stuff, and the B-man would need to shoot some lightning bolts or run through something real fast. I think it was a mistake not to give Dr. Billy Hayes any super powers. And Jane (who was Glo’s probation officer), really played no real role in the series. Not only that but she appeared pregnant during mid-season with no backstory or anything about her character, eventually her character left the series. Those 2 characters could of been given super powers to help round out and give more variety to their team. And what about their boss at Humanidyne (the actor is best known from ALF)? I think he probably could of been given a secret super power, one that was lame but one that he could of revealed later on and helped out in 1 or 2 episodes later on. Although it wouldn’t of made sense to make him help on every episode, as his character seemed too much a coward to help the Misfits. If they had made all their main characters have some kind of power the show probably could of lasted 3 seasons or more.