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Is TV Almost Worthless?

MrME

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Entertainment has no worth, then?

There's a lot of good stuff on TV, you just have to find it. HBO and Showtime's original programming is usually pretty good. Dexter, The Sopranos, The Wire, Weeds, Deadwood, Carnivale, Dead Like Me. All are or were good shows. Granted some ended before their times, but regardless -- good TV.

The Shield was fantastic.
The Venture Bros. is hilarious.
There are a number of good shows on Adult Swim.
Hell's Kitchen is good fun.
Kitchen Nightmares is also a lot of fun.
The F Word on BBC.
Good Eats is educational and fun.
No Reservations is excellent.
Man v. Food is a guilty pleasure of mine.
How Clean is Your House? on BBC

Admittedly, the advertisements can be irritating, but that's why they put the Shut Up TV button on the remote. (Mute.) :)
 

Mole

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TV is sub-literate dreck.

And it perpetuates American group fantasy.

It would be very interesting if TV subjected group fantasy to literate understanding. But it doesn't.

It slops group fantasy into our minds, uncritically, without let or hinderance.

TV dumbs us down simply so that we will buy, buy, buy.

But why should we be surprised as your last President, President Bush, said in response to the economic crisis that, "The business of America is business".

And from the other side of the world, the odd, naive and charming thing about Americans, is that they are always selling themselves.

And it was President Calvin Coolidge, the only President to be born on the 4th of July, and as American as apple pie, who first said, "The business of America is business".

And Americans have been selling themselves ever since.

And it is the Calvinists who teach that salvation is found in the work ethic, in buying and selling - even selling yourself.

So TV is essentially a religious sermon teaching us the way to salvation.
 

Clownmaster

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TV is nigh worthless. You have the news, and thats all I would use it for.
I guess, the machine, the television, is not worthless. You can hook up a videogame console to it, which is more gratifying than watching 10 minutes of commercials every 30 minutes ANYDAY.

Personally, I illegally download my entire seasons of the shows I like

I only know I like these shows by chance of happening to walk by one, or by word of mouth
 

AOA

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You know, we're paying well over £800 a year for Sky (and Channel subscription)... and there's barely anything to watch - let alone, getting enough time to watch.

...
 

ColonelGadaafi

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Are books worthless?

Depends which ones you read.

Same with TV.

When you have a giant library containing books which you summon at will.. and to your disposal, the impovrished library with a narrow selection is marginalized to being a illogical choice.

Entertainment has no worth, then?

There's a lot of good stuff on TV, you just have to find it. HBO and Showtime's original programming is usually pretty good. Dexter, The Sopranos, The Wire, Weeds, Deadwood, Carnivale, Dead Like Me. All are or were good shows. Granted some ended before their times, but regardless -- good TV.

The Shield was fantastic.
The Venture Bros. is hilarious.
There are a number of good shows on Adult Swim.
Hell's Kitchen is good fun.
Kitchen Nightmares is also a lot of fun.
The F Word on BBC.
Good Eats is educational and fun.
No Reservations is excellent.
Man v. Food is a guilty pleasure of mine.
How Clean is Your House? on BBC

Admittedly, the advertisements can be irritating, but that's why they put the Shut Up TV button on the remote. (Mute.

BitTorrent (protocol) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peer-to-peer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most of it is there... and numbered.
 

swordpath

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Depends what you're watching TV for and then which channels you can access to cater to your taste... If you want mindless, comedic entertainment I'd say there's plenty of TV for you. If you want intellectual stimulus, there's the History channel, Discovery Channel etc. If you enjoy sports, there's sports channels. News - News channels etc. etc.

I wouldn't say TV is worthless.
 

Athenian200

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I mostly watch reruns or documentaries. I can't stand hearing about current events or politics, so I don't watch TV when those are on. I prefer the computer these days, but TV is still the best for me on those days when I have absolutely no motivation to do anything.
 

ajblaise

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I like having news on in the background sometimes, mostly CNN, MSNBC, and Link TV.

Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office (the US version, obviously. Gervais just isn't that funny) are the two funniest shows on TV and I'll watch them.

And when I see something cool on

-Discovery
-Discovery Science
-Nat Geo
-History Channel
 

MrME

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rooo

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I used to think so, until I started watching Big Love. Though I can't afford HBO, so I download that... And there's always re-runs of Friends and The Simpsons.... ALWAYS. Oh and Everyone Loves Raymond... Zzzz...
 

Verfremdungseffekt

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This is the golden age of television.

Never before has TV been this interesting, complex, and exciting.
Pretty much. Back in the late '50s, early '60s, in the anthology boom -- Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone -- there was some stuff going on. It's really only the last decade that the medium seems to have found its feet, though, as a dramatic platform.

The trick is not to watch television for the sake of television; it's to look into specific shows, and treat each as you would a novel.
 
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As someone once said, "90% of everything is crap." It's true of TV. But that 10% is fantastic and worthwhile. The best TV of the last 10-15 years is better than anything that came before, but suffers by association with the dregs of TV like reality shows, soap operas and local news. No one ever criticizes someone for reading a book, no matter the quality. Unfortunately, TV viewers are not afforded the same luxury.

Aside from that, TV is a medium that allows us a group experience that nothing can quite match. Things like the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, inaugurations, sporting events. It gives us a shared point of reference.

Those who denigrate TV by calling it "sub-literate dreck" or the like not only identify themselves as elitists with contempt for their fellow man, but miss the point entirely.
 

Mole

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The trick is not to watch television for the sake of television; it's to look into specific shows, and treat each as you would a novel.

This is actually true.

Unfortunately you are asking us to treat TV as a novel, but they are entirely different mediums.

The novel is private and creates the literate individual, while TV is public and creates neo-tribalism.

And although we do read individual books, we don't as a rule watch individual programs - we just watch television.

So television is tribal in nature and is, by definition, sub-literate.
 

Samvega

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Don't watch it, don't own one, have no clue who is the newest sensation for killing his wife, her daughter or what sports/music star is in what sex scandal.

Frankly I think dummy box is very fitting and while I will watch things from time to time on my computer I have no interest in wasting my life watching other people do things on television. Nor do I care to listen to people pontificate any of the aforementioned topics.

So yes, TV in excess of say 5 or 6 hours a week is for mindless Americans if you ask me.
 

Verfremdungseffekt

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Unfortunately you are asking us to treat TV as a novel, but they are entirely different mediums.
They're different media in that they are based in a different study -- just as painting studies a different form from sculpture, and theater studies a different form from videogames. The television drama and the novel are similar in that they're both long-form standards derived from a shorter format -- film and the short story, respectively.

...

It's old hat to point this out, but any new medium is considered trash when it first appears. This goes back at least to the nineteenth century and the novel. No, wait! Polyphonic music, in the renaissance.

The television drama serves to express ideas that could not be expressed the same way in other forms. It has its own rules, its own language, as does any medium.

Its value comes not in the inherent qualities or potential of the medium so much as in how competently that medium is exploited, and to what expressive end. And right now, as of the last decade or so, it's being exploited properly, competently, to say worthwhile things. Not always; sometimes. So that is in how its value must be judged.

Doesn't mean you have to take an interest. There's more than one form of literacy, though. Words ain't any more noble than brush strokes or strips of celluloid. It's all communication; all abstract. If you aren't willing to leave your baggage at the door, that ain't the medium's fault.
 

Verfremdungseffekt

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Dude, it's just people. They're just trying to say stuff. You aren't interested, that's cool. Go do your thing. If you're not interested in engaging, though, you've got no place in judging.

You're dumping your own trash here. That's not constructive.
 

Mole

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Dude, it's just people. They're just trying to say stuff. You aren't interested, that's cool. Go do your thing. If you're not interested in engaging, though, you've got no place in judging.

You're dumping your own trash here. That's not constructive.

I don't think you understand.

I am quoting Marshall McLuhan who said -

"The medium is the message".
 
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