Reality Bites

I spent the weekend sick as a dog, another surge of the general miasma I've been struggling with for the past two to three weeks. Spending a lot of time in bed, without much stamina for web surfing, I actually watched television, something I haven't really done much of since my son was born.

Those damn reality shows have taken over, apparently. It was getting bad before I quit the habit, but now its insanely worse, now that all the cable channels have jumped on the bandwagon. I'd flip from channel to channel, and I'd find strings of seven or eight channels with nothing but drivelous reality shows. The one that made me turn off the television had two women on an ominous-looking soundstage with ominous-sounding music, trying to make little paper doll clothes.

This is why the MPAA should be afraid, not movie downloading. If the television networks manage to dumb us down enough that we don't care about having a good plot, powerful characterization, and finely-scripted drama, and instead just want to see the fat guy gag on the rotting sheep guts, that will do more damage to Hollywood's bottom line than anything.