Have any of you heard of the phrase "Jump the Shark"? Just in case you haven't, here's what it means.
Jumping the shark is an idiom created by Jon Hein
that is used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television
show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery. The
phrase is also used to refer to a particular scene, episode, or aspect
of a show in which the writers use some type of "gimmick" in a desperate
attempt to keep viewers' interest.
In its initial usage, it referred to the point in a television program's
history when the program had outlived its freshness and viewers had
begun to feel that the show's writers were out of new ideas, often after
great effort was made to revive interest in the show by the writers,
producers, or network.
Well, I watched all of the CBS sit comb presentations and feel strongly that they all jumped the shark. Terrible, terrible. I can't imagine that none around the table discussing the episode did not find a way to convince the higher ups not to air these atrocities. I very nearly decided that I was going to sell my TV set and read even more than I currently do. What trash. I held off the decision only because we do have such a thing as Public Television. I used to enjoy the history channel, but what's on now? Swamp wars, guys picking thru trash in barns, people trying to get rich selling their crap in pawn shops, even Cajun ones. Let's face it, when you create hundreds of channels operating 24/7, how much quality do we expect to get. In my opinion we get very little. And talk about sports. Don't get me wrong I've played many of them and enjoy watching at times, but just try to watch something besides a football game on Saturday...talk about overkill.
Don't start me on the commercials again. How much are they charging these days, can't be much because every break gives you at least ten of them. All of poor quality I might add. A couple of nights ago as I was surfing channels trying desperately to find something, I stumbled on an absolutely atrocious program. I was was astounded to see that even this miserable program was still able to attract the usual ten commercials. Something is wrong here. So long as I'm in a bitching mood, there's one more thing. Background noise behind everything, music, just plain unidentifiable noise in back of commercials, announcements, everything. Most of the time you can't even hear the person speaking. And canned laughter. Pay attention to it just once and you'll be unable to not hear this annoying addition to the program.
Not going to give up on TV altogether, but I'll continue to make sure my Kindle is fully charged and keep reading.
