*But still, how did we go from Saturday Morning Cartoons to Sunday Morning Toy-Adverts-Disguised-as-Cartoons?*

We did? I’m a child of the eighties, and all of the cartoons back then were toy adverts: Transformers, Visionaries, He-Man…. What I miss are the slightly more clever ones, like Dangermouse (not sure if that one made it across the pond though).

I often feel TV is a better medium for great characters than books. There are countless television characters (the scoobies, the West Wing cast, Shawn and Gus etc.) that feel like friends (pathetic maybe, but true).

On the other hand, I think books handle big story arcs better. I don’t trust most shows to tie up loose ends (though I’m coming to distrust book authors too).

So I think that sums up how I choose what to watch.

Okay. I’m off to go camping for the weekend (thus I got all my blogging for the entire weekend out in an hour) Cheers, all.

On that point, while remaking shows like Knight Rider seems like a lame idea, I think everything depends on the writing (okay, yeah, I’m biased as a writer), and the vision for the show.

After all, why redo Battlestar Galactica?

What if Whedon were doing Knight Rider? Or JJ Abrams? You might end up with a smart, ensemble show that engages us in the characters. The car gimick would become (ahem) a vehicle for the actors, a way to draw in the audience, then hook them with the drama.

Unfortunately, that is rarely the way it goes.

Of course, to do that well they would probably have to spend enough money that it would defeat the real purpose of reality tv – cheap production, no need to pay real writers, etcetera.

I have to gloat that I have a set that’s 99% of all the You Can’t Do That On Television episodes. Obtained from Barth’s Burgery.

Cheryl, I also don’t want a lot of new/live TV. Mainly because so much of it sucks.

Just one less reason to actually drag your butt out of bed at any decent hour on the weekends, I suppose. And less temptation to break out the Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch.

And shortly following Fall we have the holiday season. Remember when those old stop-motion holiday specials like Rudolph were a special event you looked forward to as a child? Now, they can just throw in the DVD in the middle of Summer when they are bored. Sometimes, technology (and commercialism) sucks.

Okay. Just wanted to rant for a sec. All better now.

I once considered that perhaps that made me part of the problem. After all, if I am not watching such shows on actual cable or whatever and giving them my support, then am I not in part responsible when they get cancelled?

But then I realized that decisions about what stays on the air or not has more to do with how much commercial or sponsorship revenue the show pulls in, and/or how much a select audience of “representative” viewers watch the show, and/or whether the network exec’s wife or son or dog likes the show. And I’m sure there are probably plenty of cases of new T.V. execs coming in and wanting to prove themselves and show their stuff and so messing with a perfectly good thing in order to try and show they can do something better, etcetera.

And surely the sales and rentals of television series on DVD or iTunes, etcetera, now tells studios and networks as much about what shows and what types of shows really have devoted audiences and which do not (as well as which audiences have money to spend on products, I suppose).

Cupid
Freaks and Geeks
Wonderfalls
Firefly
Threshold
Dresden Files
Arrested Development