Analysis - The older I get, the more TV is getting dumber

[Tpaktop2_1 NA]

I will use Idiocracy the movie as a basis for a standard. Granted it is extreme for my example, however I feel it gives a good starting point. I am watching some TV shows from streaming I see these commercials for what I consider inferior TV product that in the past would not last more than a TV pilot. Has the TV culture died today when compared to the past? I am amazed that the amount of money that is wasted (IMO) by TV producers are taking advantage of by their sponsorship's money. 

I am use to things such as the Lux Video Theater, Playhouse 90, Mad Men, The Sopranos, Rome, Deadwood, What We Do in the Shadows, The Expanse, some Game shows, etc. All of these shows put forth the effort in creating good quality TV culture. Granted there was one show in the past that I recall (Gong Show) that survived like a cockroach as if they were a certain Rolling Stone band member on drugs.

Current or past USA TV shows examples:
Catfish
Cheaters
Drag Race
Jersey Shore
Ghosts
Teen Mom
Destination Fear
Ghost Adventures
Ghost Adventures live
Vanderpump Rules
The Real Housewives of <xyz>
Keeping Up With the Kardashians

Idiocracy movie (fiction):
Ow, My Balls
Baiten Network
Rehabilitation

Running Man (fiction):
Blood Sport
Hate Boat
Confessions
Climbing for Dollars
Swimming with Crocodiles
Treadmill for Dollars

Death Race movie series (fiction)

I don't know if the current or past writer strikes are compounding the situation making it worse than before. Of which I have no problems with that writers part for better pay. Or is it social media adding to the fire of TV show creation?  It seems like the TV producers really don't care what they produce for quality but rather than quantity. TV developers have got to get programming that fills 24 hours in a day. I can take the infomercials or test patterns over the TV garbage being produced today. I am wondering if I am turning into a legend where my viewing standards does not matter anymore? I guess that the TV shows from the 50's to 90's will not evolve into greater TV culture. Because the way the TV producers are going now, we will end up with more Idiocracy TV shows. Do you agree or disagree on the discussion?

 

[Admiral_Karasu]

Yes, I've been wondering about this as well. When I was a kid, there were (barely) two channels, and if you didn't like what was on one, then you switched to the other side to see what was there. Sometimes there might be something on both at same time even... now there's a lot of channels but barely anything worth even thinking about. If there is, it is either ridiculously early in the morning or very very late in the evening or during night time.

The movies are mostly ... well just about entirely garbage. Again,as a kid and even later on, there were a lot of those black and white movies, crime, war movies, westerns, all kinds from a generation or even two earlier. None of that now, practically everything they show is beyond 2000 stuff.

[Asym]

38 minutes ago, Tpaktop2_1 NA said:

I will use Idiocracy the movie as a basis for a standard. Granted it is extreme for my example, however I feel it gives a good starting point. I am watching some TV shows from streaming I see these commercials for what I consider inferior TV product that in the past would not last more than a TV pilot. Has the TV culture died today when compared to the past? I am amazed that the amount of money that is wasted (IMO) by TV producers are taking advantage of by their sponsorship's money. 

... et al..

New content, whether it is TV or Movies is sooooooo expensive to make !  New ideas simply are extremely expensive because there isn't anything that is available to use from "other movies of the same genre..."  That's why we are seeing clones of clones of clones....  Sequels of sequels.....  New movies being recycled !  Heck, they'll recycle "ET" as soon as Spielberg passes.  Recycling foreign shows that work where they were created :  Ghost and "the Good Doctor" are examples.  Saves a lot of development costs that way;  AND, you know they were successful somewhere else !

We are hearing from friends that work in that field that many 60's and 70's shows are being considered for a reboot.....

Cost and a toxic viewing audience are significant "issues" these days"...  Woke is another major problem. 

Imagine a new Bonanza:   with one of everything.....

New Plot concept:  Rebooted Bonanza !

An adopted family of four orphans (gender neutral);  raised by an SE Asian father;  a Hasidic Jewish mother;  a Russian Butler;  a Greek valet;  a Swahili footman; an English Lady's maid (with an accent almost impossible to understand);  a French chef with a passion for chili;  and,  an Irish Housekeeper with an attitude;  with, house servants from Germany, Japan, Hawaii and the artic circle.   Grounds keepers from Italy and Sweden..  With Cowboys from:   South American (Gaucho's) and Mongolians (Darkhad riders) whom can't quite figure out how to make Airag in Utah.....  We'd also have US Plains Indians whom have pity of this family and try to help.  A Buddist Sheriff with an aboriginal Deputy with a big knife and an Arabic town Doctor..... The Governor would be a displaced shop owner from Massachusetts (named John Adams) that can barely be understood... 

 

 

 

[Snargfargle]

The TV shows I grew up watching seemed to have more depth than those you see today. Route 66, a show about two guys working their way across America and who encounter all sorts of local "detective" situations along the way, inspired me to read Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" and later in life hit the road myself for many travels across America of my own (but reality is never as exciting as the movies, as I soon found out, like the fellow said "I went searching for America, but it wasn't there," or maybe it was but just not what I'd hoped to find). When one of the original actors had to leave the show due to illness his character was replaced by an Army veteran who shows up in uniform wearing a 1st Special Forces Command patch. He'd been an advisor in an unknown, far-away country called Vietnam. This was in 1963, before most Americans had even heard of Vietnam, which shows you how far-thinking the writers of the show were.

 

Edited February 25 by Snargfargle

[clammboy]

2 hours ago, Tpaktop2_1 NA said:

I don't know if the current or past writer strikes are compounding the situation making it worse than before. Of which I have no problems with that writers part for better pay. Or is it social media adding to the fire of TV show creation?  It seems like the TV producers really don't care what they produce for quality but rather than quantity. TV developers have got to get programming that fills 24 hours in a day. I can take the infomercials or test patterns over the TV garbage being produced today. I am wondering if I am turning into a legend where my viewing standards does not matter anymore? I guess that the TV shows from the 50's to 90's will not evolve into greater TV culture. Because the way the TV producers are going now, we will end up with more Idiocracy TV shows. Do you agree or disagree on the discussion?

I tend to disagree a little there are a lot of real good TV shows but there all streamed now and if you don't have Paramount plus, Amazon Prime, Apple , etc etc you cant see them. Network TV seems to have taken a real nose dive though. But I am getting older and things are passing me bye pretty quickly so I can understand were your coming from. 

[SunkCostFallacy]

I have to admit to being an outlier in this case. I turned my TV off back in October of 2005, and prior to that for several years I watched very little TV anyway. Since then the only TV I've seen has been when waiting somewhere and they have the TV on.

I'll be blunt: It was watching these snippets of TV in waiting rooms, etc that lead me to doing some research and discovering the Reverse Flynn Effect¹.

I could not believe how dumb the TV I was seeing was getting. And not just dumb, but crude. Subtle humor was being replaced with jokes which were anything but subtle. The news was probably always propaganda to a certain extent, but as the years progress it's become so pathetically blatant that I question the stupidity of anyone who falls for it. Horror was replace by gore. The list goes on.

And as has been noted ... it's not just TV. Movies, novels, music ... all are in a state of decline. One merely has to contrast the original to any of the recent sequels/reboots:

• Raiders of the Lost Arc as compared to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
• Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2016
• The Karate Kid (1984) and The Karate Kid (2010)
• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
• The Matrix and The Matrix Resurrections.

Those are just a few I dug out ... you can be forgiven if you'd forgotten about the reboots, as most people have.

On the subject of music I'll simply contrast anything that the Beatles did when they were off their faces on hallucinogens to WAP.

Some people claim that it's just because we're getting old that we dont' 'get' the new stuff.

My go-to response to that is simple: In the 50's 'Reality TV' was Candid Camera ... a light hearted show about people being gently pranked. Now it's Keeping up with the Kardashians ... twenty tedious seasons of the most defective and obnoxious people ever put on TV. What's to get?

I know that mass entertainment is dominated by the lowest common denominator ... but does it have to be SO low?

Quite frankly I used to download stuff from time to time, but these days there's not much that's worth pirating!

 

 

1. Short version: The Flynn Effect was the steady increase in measured IQ over the 20th century. Unfortunately it has now reversed, and succeeding generations are showing lower IQ than the previous one. When you factor in the decline in education standards the result is a marked decrease in intellectual quality across the board from generation to generation.

 

 

[thornzero]

The attention spans of most people are much like the two week lifespan of a gnat. Telly has become absolute rubbish. But people are still watching. [and watching the ads.] Someone's bills are getting paid.

Notwithstanding, there is pockets of opportunity regarding excellent writing and acting. But it usually takes a solid recommendation [for me] as I no longer really search for anything to watch besides some of my usual go-to favourites. A go-to favourite is something I could watch again - and really enjoy the story.

I typically do not breach the pay wall. My situation is constricted for the time being and there are plenty of opportunities to watch something for no charge. If its dull [which it usually isn't] I'll pursue these options.

But as they say - telly is programming and its sort of meant to be garbage because it actually is programming. So in that light, it is best to be avoided or at least, a minimal exposure.

Consider the 197o's comedy vs. to-day. In the 7o's you couldn't hurt anyone's feelings, everyone was made fun of - equally. Think about that and the soreness of this the modern era. We've sort of went backwards actually with all the can'ts and don'ts.

If you haven't had a telly for the past 1o or 2o years, my guess is you haven't missed much.

 

[Rollingonit]

23 hours ago, clammboy said:

I tend to disagree a little there are a lot of real good TV shows but there all streamed now and if you don't have Paramount plus, Amazon Prime, Apple , etc etc you cant see them. Network TV seems to have taken a real nose dive though. But I am getting older and things are passing me bye pretty quickly so I can understand were your coming from. 

Yah, it's now all spread out on different streaming services. Really annoying. Especially as the licensing deals flip flop around.

I havent had cable TV since the 90s, so I have no idea what is being shown on "normal" television nowadays.

[Snargfargle]

I watch some "TV shows" on Netflix. I put that in quotes because most of the good ones weren't originally shown on network TV but on cable or streaming channels. Russian Doll is pretty good if you haven't seen it. If you watched Heavy Metal back in the 80s then you might be interested in Love Death and Robots, which is a series along the same vein. I've watched The Magicians through twice and will definitely watch it again some day. Black Mirror can be weird but does keep you thinking. Battlestar Galactica wasn't too bad. Better Call Saul kept me entertained but I just couldn't get into Breaking Bad because I've treated too many drug ODs and have a problem with drug dealers, even fictional ones. Longmire starred an actress from Battlestar Galactica as well as a couple of other well-known actors and was interesting. I watch a South Park episode every once in a while when one I've not seen comes on its channel for free. I'll have to admit that I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its entirety. I've watched Lexx through about three times and have all the songs from the Brigadoom episode on my hard drive. Parks and Recreation was a funny comedy, as was The Office. Of course, as a SciFi fan I've watched all of the Star Treks except for the newer ones that are still behind paywalls. I watched Twin Peaks, Firefly, and the X-Files when they were on too. I scrounge around and watch all the old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes I can find as well.

Edited February 27 by Snargfargle