February 16, 2005
The death of TV, or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the silence
The Sci-Fi Channel…
I was looking at the schedule for the UK sci-fi channel and I was like, dang that’s a lot of different shows, and there’s no crappy shows like “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”. Then I started to wonder…is our sci-fi channel also not-crappy? It used to be crappy…it used to be very crappy. I couldn’t stand it, it was so crappy. You know that feeling you get when you’ve reached the end of a tv show and it’s not that great? It’s just like “oh…i guess i just wasted 30 minutes of my life.” I used to get that feeling a lot watching the sci-fi channel. Alas, after looking up the US schedule…it’s still crappy… Here’s the two schedules for Wednesday, side by side (or…not side by side) for the UK Sci-Fi channel and the US Sci-Fi channel:
UK
6.00am – The Ray Bradbury Theatre – And the Moon Be Still as Bright
6.30am – The Ray Bradbury Theatre – The Day It Rained Forever
7.00am – Teleshopping
10.00am – Farscape – Incubator
11.00am – The Sentinel – Red Ice
12.00pm – Sliders – Please Press One
1.00pm – The Pretender – Extreme
2.00pm – The KGB Psychic Files – Part 2
3.00pm – The Chronicle – The Chronicle
4.00pm – Farscape – Meltdown
5.00pm – The Sentinel – Red Ice
6.00pm – Sliders – A Current Affair
7.00pm – The Pretender – Wild Child
8.00pm – Crusade – The Well of Forever
9.00pm – Andromeda – Conduit to Destiny
10.00pm – MOVIE: From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter
11.45pm – MOVIE: Post Impact
1.35am – MOVIE: From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter
3.20am – The Outer Limits – Human Trials
4.15am – The Pretender – Wild Child
5.10am – Millennium – Luminary
UK Summary: 12 different shows (5 repeats), 3 movies.
US
06:00 AM PAID PROGRAMMING
08:00 AM ROSWELL CRAZY
09:00 AM ROSWELL TESS, LIES AND VIDEOTAPES
10:00 AM ROSWELL FOUR SQUARE
11:00 AM ROSWELL MAD TO THE MAX
12:00 PM ROSWELL THE WHITE ROOM – PT 1
01:00 PM ROSWELL DESTINY – PT 2
02:00 PM ROSWELL SKIN & BONES
03:00 PM ROSWELL ASK NOT
04:00 PM SLIDERS SUMMER OF LOVE
05:00 PM X-FILES, THE 3
06:00 PM STARGATE SG-1 (SEASON 6) UNNATURAL SELECTION – PT 2
07:00 PM RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! (2000) EPISODE 309
08:00 PM RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! (2000) EPISODE 310
09:00 PM RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! (2000) EPISODE 311
10:00 PM RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! (2000) EPISODE 312
11:00 PM MOVIE ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
01:00 AM TWILIGHT ZONE, THE A WORLD OF HIS OWN
01:30 AM TWILIGHT ZONE, THE KING NINE WILL NOT RETURN
02:00 AM X-FILES, THE RUSH
03:00 AM MOVIE CLONED
05:00 AM PAID PROGRAMMING
US Summary: 6 different shows (12 repeats), 2 movies
8 hours of roswell? 4 hours of ripley’s believe it or not during prime night-time-tv-watching? And this is just the sci-fi channel, which has a limited audience as it is. I’m not even gonna touch those other channels, MTV,VH1,XQPL,BOLAG. What can you gain from TV shows? A good laugh? Some insight into the mystical world of politics? Maybe 5 years ago. What can you gain now? Useless trivia? Some kind of self-worth from laughing at people in awkward situations? Maybe you feel better about yourself because your waist will never be as big as some no-name celebrity trading dignity for prosperity. The world outside of our cage is what the TV tells us it is. No wonder we’re so pissed off.
