Worst show on TV

[BikerDude]

The economics of TV are killing it.
We get Entertainment substituting for news because it's both cheaper and pays more.
We get reality TV because it's cheap to make. No writers or actors. It's pure profit.
It's appeal to the lowest common denominator. The bean counters tally it up and sadly, that is reality.
Same with Movies.
It's safer to just make Spider Man 20 because it's formula and a sure payoff.
A turning point was the notorious "Heavens Gate" which in included Jeff Bridges in the caste.
This documentary is pretty interesting. 8 parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdcRiPLp4oU

Includes commentary from the Dude himself.

[meekon5]

Heavens Gate don't they all die in the end (apart from the woman)?

[BikerDude]

Heavens Gate don't they all die in the end (apart from the woman)?

Not sure. I don't think I ever made it that far.
It's been many years since I saw it.

Oh no. That was the Cult not the movie.

[forumdude]

One more recommendation: Strangers With Candy.

[DigitalBuddha]

The economics of TV are killing it.
We get Entertainment substituting for news because it's both cheaper and pays more.
We get reality TV because it's cheap to make. No writers or actors. It's pure profit.
It's appeal to the lowest common denominator. The bean counters tally it up and sadly, that is reality.
Same with Movies.
It's safer to just make Spider Man 20 because it's formula and a sure payoff.
A turning point was the notorious "Heavens Gate" which in included Jeff Bridges in the caste.
This documentary is pretty interesting. 8 parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdcRiPLp4oU

Includes commentary from the Dude himself.

The dude buys the whore house and lives in it; fabulous stuff, man! Great find, BD, very interesting documentary. I watched the movie after and have to say that all in all it was a good movie with awesome visuals. And of course Jeff B was his usual relaxed dude like actor. I wonder what he was paid; 20 grand and a beeper?

[BikerDude]

In regards to this topic, though, I'd say that any number of half hour situation comedies are worse than Grey's Anatomy. Shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Home Improvement" or the like. I don't even know any of the new ones. They are written by committees of highly paid robots. At the very least you might learn a bit about medicine by watching Grey's Anatomy.

Yes but they don't take themselves seriously.
Grey's is a soap opera.

[Hominid]

In regards to this topic, though, I'd say that any number of half hour situation comedies are worse than Grey's Anatomy. Shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Home Improvement" or the like. I don't even know any of the new ones. They are written by committees of highly paid robots. At the very least you might learn a bit about medicine by watching Grey's Anatomy.

Yes but they don't take themselves seriously.
Grey's is a soap opera.

Ya, it is. Hard to swallow sometimes; my special lady likes it so I "have to" as well.    But, she puts up with my Bruce Willis and Jason Stratham movies, with TBL commentary thrown in here and there for variety.

[BikerDude]

I can tell if mine gets into a funk about things and starts to bum.
She'll want to just sit in bed and watch episode after episode of Grey's.
That's the real evil of pablum like that.
Escape in to paper thin narcissism and false greeting card emotionality.
Granted it's a chick show.
But it's the sort of stuff that leads women to end up old and alone with a house full of cats.
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

[WabiSabi]

BD ... brutal analysis!!!!

I'm not sure if I am in that camp or not, re: a house full of cats, but I definitely agree that it's pablum ... way too soft for my palate.

The challenge is that for most people "cogitare" ... is too much like hard work, so pablum it is ... ratings for the networks improve and remain high ... and off we go.

However, the ground work is laid in place in elementary schooling. Everything about learning is presented as "work" so it becomes unpleasantly associated. Worst "not knowing" what you haven't yet learned (because that's why you're in school to learn it, duh!!!) is punished. The typical punishment of course is being made to look like a fool in front of your compeers ... uggggh!!! So all learning is avoided ... and anything that smacks of thinking becomes associated with that and is likewise avoided.

Therefore any T.V. program or film that requires any amount of thinking to get to the entertainment value become "work" and it's cancelled before it's begun it's run.

By personal bitch of course is that those are the shows I most enjoy ... the ones that demand I am present to get them, the ones that play with my intelligence and not my emotions, the ones that don't end every episode with things all wrapped up nice and tight and neat as a drum ... but if I'm lucky I'll get two seasons before they kill anything like that!

FULL DISCLOSURE: Then again I'm a Midsumer Murders fanatic too

[BikerDude]

Hmmm.
When it comes to education the ax I grind is that it is passion killing.
A kid can start out with a genuine passion for something and the act of actually pursuing it just kills the passion. Why can't we teach math in the context of things that kids are genuinely interested in?
A kid loves video games or Star Wars, which I would say is an indication of both imagination and a certain fascination with science. But we extract the skill they need from all of that and present them in a dry boring way that leaves kids cold.

As far as the idea of making kids feel good about themselves or bad about themselves, not sure.
But the food for thought is that we see how fantastic kids in Asian countries are doing. We in fact do studies about what it is about Asian schools that make them so successful. And really don't come up with much that makes a lot of sense.
BUT remember that in Asian countries kids go to school 12 hours a day and failure is treated not just as embarrassing but shameful. I mean like the "I have dishonored my family" knife into the guts kind of shameful.
Sad to say that it pays dividends. Don't shoot the messenger.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that we follow suit. But what we do is the worst possible thing.
We deal in half measures. We make kids feel bad about themselves and then tell them it's OK.
So we end up with the walking dead.

[WabiSabi]

BD we have to define it when you say:

We in fact do studies about what it is about Asian schools that make them so successful.

What does successful mean?

Are they happier, do they produce more innovative research? Are they more represented in Nobel or McArthur prize winners as a result? Are they more positively changing the world for the better, and creating more of a future that we all want to be living into collectively?

For me these are the questions that educators have to be able to confront and answer. The delusion that "education is the great equalizer" as the pundit of the status quo in Washington D.C. recently spat is just bullsh*t!!!

When you begin to look deeply into the education equation it doesn't actually pan out that way at the top. Sure the top CEOs of most multi-nationals are well educated ... up to about a basic university level, with very few having even masters degrees, and fewer still doctorates (there are some exceptions to this in the financial and scientific industries, but still very few).

When you look to the top 1-2% of all income earners then education goes out the door completely. Many entrepreneurs are NOT college graduates and couldn't submit a basic tax return on their own for the maths it would take. Many folks in entertainment and sports are in the same category educationally, but are extraordinarily successful in terms of income production and wealth creation.

When you look to the "happiness" scales you find it's worst still for the education argument. People who work with their hands, including visual artists, report being much more happy on average than people in "professional" jobs, i.e.: white collar work. During times of economic downturns craftsmen and women also have better prospects for remaining employed or getting re-employed than many white collar workers do as well.

I have two children and I'd never want them to have the kind of "success" that is foisted on many Asian children (not all of course). I want them to "Find Their Bliss" to use Joe Campbell's words. It's truly not about the money, beyond having enough to stay dry and warm, keep food on the table and get around as necessary. There is more to quality of life than bigger, better, more IMO.

I do lots of work in Asia, and I see and talk to children and parents who are dealing with 12 hour school days and homework on top of that too. These "kids" have no childhood, and that loss shows up when they become adults in many, many ways. One of the worst of them IMO is that they are way too prone to submit to authority, the system and society in general ... with all it's unfair imbalances and skewed rules. The striving for the top ... to die at 65 or sooner just never made much sense to me ... but, hey this is all just opinion man.

For my two cents ... personally and as a parent ... I'd rather my children find their own path with heart, follow it until it fills their soul ... and it's okay for me if they can never work out differential equations ... unless of course their path with heart is towards quantum physics or pure maths.

[meekon5]

Heavens Gate don't they all die in the end (apart from the woman)?

Not sure. I don't think I ever made it that far.
It's been many years since I saw it.

Oh no. That was the Cult not the movie.

Now they (Heavens Gate Cult) did all die in the end.

I've only seen bits of the film as part of Rich halls very informative insightful TV programs on the West and other aspects of America as reflected through it's film culture.

I'm not sure if I am in that camp or not, re: a house full of cats, but I definitely agree that it's pablum ... way too soft for my palate.

The challenge is that for most people "cogitare" ... is too much like hard work, so pablum it is ... ratings for the networks improve and remain high ... and off we go.

However, the ground work is laid in place in elementary schooling. Everything about learning is presented as "work" so it becomes unpleasantly associated. Worst "not knowing" what you haven't yet learned (because that's why you're in school to learn it, duh!!!) is punished. The typical punishment of course is being made to look like a fool in front of your compeers ... uggggh!!! So all learning is avoided ... and anything that smacks of thinking becomes associated with that and is likewise avoided.

Therefore any T.V. program or film that requires any amount of thinking to get to the entertainment value become "work" and it's cancelled before it's begun it's run.

But the economics of mediocrity, and the ease of conforming to the lowest possible denominator must also apply.

Why should the producers of the show have to spend money thinking of new and interesting scenarios when they can just apply the old adage "if it's not broken why fix it?"

Jaws 12
Rambo IV,V,IV
Aliens 17.

It is also the fault of inertia in the TV companies, and over expectation in the investors. Red Dwarf didn't become a solid "hit" until season two or three at least, then people went back and looked at the first series. Firefly (a personal favourite) was canned after one series, then they had such a reaction they went on to make the film, but no sign yet of another TV series.

One of the major reasons I follow and watch Japanese (or Korean) films is because they seem to tend to cater for a slightly higher IQ as lowest common denominator. Now even I will admit that my viewing could be skewed due to the fact that I only get to hear about the better products, so my perception has the crap filtered out before I get to look at it.

As for schools, they were never places of learning, they were always places that trained certain people to pass exams (of no practical use once you leave academia), whilst others are trained to accept the fact that they would repeatedly have their dreams crushed and destroyed.

[Landshark]

I enjoyed the U.S. run of Life on Mars. I have only seen one episode of the U.K. version, but it just doesn't seem to have the same feel. I know the U.S. version was retooled to protect out or fragile minds.

[BikerDude]

What does successful mean?

The kids pass the classes, get better grades and go on to University to become engineers (or whatever).
In this equation it's less about happyness than about economics.
I mean if we want to teach meditation that's groovy but I'd rather not switch places with India in terms of GNP in the process.
Bottom line our educational system is sliding farther and farther down. We used to lead the world in the number of people earning advanced degrees. We are 14th now I believe.
You could point out all of the people who make it without degrees but I don't think you could point out a society with a high standard of living without a high standard of education.
That's the point. The overall level of "success" ie education ie knowledge. Sure knowledge is not necessarily the product of formalized education but when looked at on a larger scale (like all the population of a country) then it is a product of education. More people passing classes and going on to higher education equals a more knowledgeable society and one better equipped to compete in the world. The US used to make sense as world leader by that metric. We did graduate more kids and give out more advanced degrees. Now we have backslid and we have lost ground exactly as would be expected.

Typically people point out that Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard.
But they don't mention that he went to work for Apple. Microsoft started out writing software for Apple. Then they stole the idea of the graphical user interface from them but that's another can of worms entirely.
Bottom line is that Bill Gates could not have been Bill Gates if he lived in Guatemala or any number of other places.
I agree that this has nothing to do with happiness and as I said don't shoot the messenger.
I know it's very undude but fact is somebody is out to eat our lunch and piss on our rug.
What movie was it where the guy said "Money doesn't buy happiness" and the other guy says "Only a rich person could say that"?
There is something to that.
I don't need to be rich but I doubt that any of us would be very happy standing in bread lines.

So as you can see through precise didactic logic I have shown that Grey's Anatomy will eventually leave us all in bread lines. With a latte in hand no doubt.