Thursday, June 04, 2009

Welcome to Summer

Well, it's official: summer is here. And want to know how we can tell this? The return of the dreaded main-stream broadcast reality show. You know what I'm talking about. Those reality shows designed to just draw people in with ridiculous amounts of emotion and stupid stunts, not to mention stupid people. Shows that make you want to take up a hobby like building model ships out of toothpicks and handkerchiefs. Summer has arrived!
But don't worry, I'm here to guide you through the horribly dull waters of summertime TV.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking every single reality show. There are a few out there that pass my tests. One of my favorites is So You Think You Can Dance? The upside of this show: once you get past the bad auditions, there's no such thing as a really bad dance. All you get is professionalism that looks perfect to the average American's untrained eye. The downside? Mary's annoying screeching and robotic laughing. I think anyone would agree that even Paula is better than that nightmare of teeth and noise.
There really aren't any other shows that I would recommend for summer viewing. Except reruns. But even those can get a bit frustrating.
I'm sure you will notice that I haven't touched upon any of the cable shows premiering for the summer. That is mostly because I don't have cable. Duh.
Fox has premiered a new prime time drama for the summer called Mental. I've seen one episode of the show and I already don't like it. Shows now are just too over involved. By the second episode there's so much going on with the characters that you practically need a guide to keep up. Not to mention that the first thing they try to do is force a ton of dramatic situations and intense emotional complications right away. What happened to starting out with one story line at a time and allowing them to evolve as the show progressed? I'll tell you what happened to that: people got bored with it in some shows, and so producers immediately assumed that that was the consensus of the general public. And this is why there have been more failed pilots in the last 2 seasons than we've seen in a long time.
Well really, there's not a whole lot of TV for your average non-cable owning American to look forward to this summer. My suggestion? Use your internet to your best advantage: catch up on the good shows you've been missing out on with some nice internet resources. Find out what's been happening on with Nancy on Weeds or what those crazy boys of Rescue Me have been up to. And if all else fails...read a book!