Tag Archives: Television News
Television
Horrible. Getting worse. Predictable. Who are these actors? When is it on? So many commercials? Why so loud? Was that the news? Another repeat? This is television . Like Twitter and other social media it has been commercialized and bastardized way past the point of everyone’s comfort zone. It is downright annoying. It has seriously jumped the shark.
There are few alternatives. It’s not as though you can sit down with a “good” magazine – they are equally as annoying. Less intelligent content and pages filled with anorexic men and girls in ridiculous fashions designed for the wealthy to wear on other planets. Most content is pointless and tweet-like. The “articles” amateurishly written about fluff mostly by journalist wanna-bees. The art of editing seems to have died. Just like television.
I couldn’t care less what the large audience for prime time talent shows featuring celebrity judges in spinning chairs is. I ignore the ridiculous claims of the networks that EVERY one of their shows is hit, obviously far from it. The pronouncement that Joe Schmo from some blockbuster movie is executive producing a new television series is meaningless to me. And, despite the supposed law just passed that commercials must be the same volume as the programs they’re advertising on, they’re definitely not. One of the worst commercials of the season was by Target. A strange nerd-like “man” – a “weirdo” – was screaming into a red telephone announcing a sale. Creativity has been replaced by college fraternity antics and shouting. Pathetic.
Whether it’s produced by the broadcast networks or cable – reality, drama, comedy or something else – what is being fed to us is garbage. This trash comes and goes split up unevenly and unexpectedly though the year in fake “seasons” with ridiculous mindless cliff hangers in the form of airplane and car crashes, terminal illnesses or gun or bomb violence. How many times did a show end and you asked yourself if one or more of the characters managed to negotiate a new contract for another season on the program? Will he recover from the heart attack on the beach? Give us a break. Don’t forget many of these actors are pulling down $125K+ per episode. I watched a movie made last year for Hallmark or Lifetime and had no idea who the actors were.
Have you tried to watch a movie on AMC or Oprah’s Oxygen not-for-prime-time network? Did you think you would ever see fifteen or more commercials in a row? The originally movie was a hour and forty-five minutes long but due to the insertion of incessant commercials it has been stretched out to three hours. I tried watching a movie onBravo and saw the same Stouffer’s meatloaf commercial over and over and over. You wonder if these people have lost their minds. By the way, is there anyone who can figure out when The Actor’s Studio is on?
I’m not going to dwell on reality programming. None of it is worth our time or attention. There is absolutely no value in it. The news is just about in the same ballpark. Without a doubt, the best thing to happen to television is the DVR. When my ability to fast forward through commercials is thwarted in any way, I avoid that program. In the case of The Good Wifeon CBS, during the football season, nobody has a clue as to when the show begins. It could be 9, fifteen minutes past the hour or later or not on at all. Screw that. The next morning, you can watch the latest episode online with limited or no commercial interruptions.
That is how television should be, no, let me correct myself, it’s how it must be. Same with movies. Forget new releases, pseudo seasons, cliffhangers, premiers. There is no way I’m going to drive to a movie theatre to purchase a Tom Cruisemovie or worse – garbage like Django Unchainedor The Guilt Trip. We all agree those are guaranteed a quick trip to DVD city. But, I just might watch such “products” on demand for 1/2 the price vs. going out to the movies. With a late night show likeCraig Ferguson’s, I go to YouTube, select the segment I prefer and watch that – never the entire program. It’s all about what “I” want to see, how “I” want to see it and when.
Television is dying. The craft of good advertising had faded away. “TV” is a mature industry nearly in dinosaur land. It is slow to adapt. Lack of innovation and acceptance of their fate has lead to loss of audience and disinterest. It’s the same ‘ole – same ‘ole rehashed. It’s as if Congress is managing the television AND movie business. There is a next great revolution waiting in the wings and what are now multi-platforms of how television and movies are viewed will be different AND better. That change sadly should have occurred 5-10 years ago. We wait with open arms.
Photo credits - econsultancy.com and mattsko
Fox’s Red Eye Review (One Of) The Worst Show (S) On Television
Friends and neighbors, I like Greg Gutfeld . I’m not quite sure why, but I do. I’m also convinced that if someone threw the right amount of money at him, he would instantly transform himself into whatever you desired – a Democrat, a country singer or magazine editor. He is, most definitely, a fair-weather Conservative.
He is one of those men that other men ask themselves, how in the hell did this guy find his way out of a dorm room? If there is anyone on cable television that would fit perfectly in the role of court jester back in merry ole England, this guy is it. Fast forward to modern day and apparently he seems to be Roger Ailes joker.
On FOX very late night, he “hosts” a “show” called "Red Eye". He appears as Joe Franklin’s evil little nephew. Look it up. He claims to be married, but to many straight men, he blips on their gay-dar. I don’t care about his sexual preference, but his on air costume includes cheap boys department tweed jackets, baby blue lace up sneakers and beige Haband leisure trousers. Sadly, his father never taught him how to put properly put on a tie. Every on air “appearance” looks like his aunt has forced him to dress for Sunday school.
So, it’s late at night and you’re up for whatever reason and you’re trying to find something – anything – to look at on 350 channels of broadcast garbage. There is nothing to order on QVC or HSN and the few free movie channels are repeating crap. You despise moronic truckers driving on ice or crack head crab Alaskan fisherman pushing the limits of OSHA rules. Any real news can still only be found on "The New York Times" online. Rachel Maddow is asleep and CNN or MSNBC are swirling the drain of irrelevancy with updates about Syria and malaria in Haiti. FOX, not the entertainment side, the news “division”, is always good for a laugh, and so you come upon Red Eye.
I have to repeat myself, I like Gutfeld. He has a high enough quirky factor and, unlike Eric Bolling, who wears women’s underwear and is an angry, somewhat (speaking of irrelevant) pathetic human being, makes me smile when he talks. He is honestly quite clever in a sort of SNL – Vanity Fair way, which is where he probably belongs. But, who would be on call to give Ailes a cheap laugh (BJ?) all at the same time. Roger modeling himself after J. Edgar and Greg thinking, anytime during sex, of Bill Clinton?
I have watched Red Eye – no – I have fast forwarded – through Red Eye three times. It was always painful. Red Eye is the noodling of entertainment news analysis. Did I say it was painful? Oh yeah. Gutfeld stands up on the side of a discarded TGI Friday’s bar table presiding over typically about four or five other fellow jesters – on what else – bar stools. Soon after the opening few words of Gutfeld as Veruca Salt, all reality of what should be FOX News disappears, along with any entertainment value, unless, of course, if you are high. Drunk won’t cut it, you need to smoke or snort something to cope with what comes next.
A dude named Andy Levy, with a far better spray on tan than Gutfeld, does the “Pregame Report.” This “segment” is pathetic. This is sheer wannabe Comedy Channel quasi political shtick – broadcasting burlesque. Red Eye then “focuses” in on the panel. Tonight was Dan Bova, the very strange looking editor of Maxim Magazine, Tony Cumia from the Howard Stern satellite radio farm team, Bill Shultz who appears to be on some sort of family release from Bellevue and the on-call book end skirt, Kayleigh McEnany.
Somewhere between Washington, DC and New York, FOX News has a warehouse of human pods, all numbered. #38 is McEnany, #16 is Andrea Tantaros, #24 is Kimberly Guilfoyle – you get the idea. When FOX producers need a leggy female, most of whom have been screwed by some Democrat somehow – which is why they’re Conservatives - to serve as a bookend on one of the many FOX News shows 24/7, they press the number of the next pod in line and that female is dispatched by limo to the set.
The other night I watched, #24 Kim Giulfoyle was the Red Eye table end skirt. Kim, all dolled up as usual as a Vegas call girl, with those huge fake eyelashes, support hose, a law degree and ridiculously high heels on, was either falling asleep or saying to herself, when can I get off this Titanic – this horrible political un-comedy farce. #38, McEnany is a cute girl, but otherwise useless as an entertainer or talking head. I feel sorry for these women, but as Roger wants, you must do, even if it’s sit there at 3am when you’d rather been home in your jammies with your cat.
Perhaps this is experimental television, some NYU live internet class. At some point in his early life, Gutfeld must have made a pact with the Devil. He was given the path to success if and only if he chose one of three directions The first was to go Christian. He declined. Second was to go country – part of that “if I was a redneck” comedy tour. He would get a mini-mansion in Branson and his CD sold at Wal-Mart. He said no. The third and last option was to be a right wing Conservative clown. He “ain’t” no libertarian. You will be a Republican clown and do a show called Red Neck, sorry, Red Eye. He accepted. Listen, the show is terrible, just don’t waste your time or your DVR with it. Gutfeld himself is talented, and he’s getting a nice payday from this gig and appearing on The Five, but better things are in his future. Hopefully soon, for everyone’s sake.
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