Network TV's Case of the Missing Men (Or, "The Day TV Died")

fox ^ | 11-21-03

[steppenwolffe]

Young man, turn on your television. Please. The networks are begging you.

Due to an exodus of 18- to 34-year-old male viewers, the four networks' new TV shows are getting booted off the air faster than "Survivor" contestants this season.

[Chewbacca]

I have the entire 1st through 8th seasons of Red Dwarf on tape.

I love that show.

I even have all the books on MP3s.

[Squawk 8888]

Where'd you get the tapes? I only caught a few episodes here, on the Comedy Network and PBS a few years back. I'm hoping that BBC Canada will re-run it sometimes. BTW the appearance of BBC Canada this spring is responsible for a tripling of my TV viewing.

[RebelBanker]

Agreed. My personal pet peeve is the multitude of shows and commercials that feature the dumb guy and his smart wife. The poor guy can't do anything on his own until his smart perky wife tells him what medicine to take, what clothes to wear, or whatever. I can not stomach the blatant pandering to the females who (according to research) control the majority of the family budget.

The next generation of this shows the gay guy as hip, smart, et cetera and the straight guy as boring, clueless, rude, and just generally unattractive.

[NCC-1701]

Some of the shows mentioned above may be good, I have no doubt. However, I quit watching series tv when M*A*S*H and Dallas went off the air. The only network shows I care to watch is Survivor and Monday Night Football. Satellite tv has much, much more to offer, and it's better fare. Another thing that turned me off is the programmers practice of inserting promos for upcomming tripe in one corner of the screen and their logos in the other. The only one on satellite that doesn't do this is, (your not going to believe it), is NASA-Select tv. I hope they NEVER succumb to that practice. Most anything on the Discovery networks, History, A&E, GAC, CMT, and a few others gets my vote. As it is, the BIG NETS have nothing to pull me in.

[Elliott Jackalope]

Yes, and more shows that show white men as the source of all evil in the universe, and that portray gay men of any color as the wisest, classiest and best people of all. I'd also like to see more hour long sermons on the virtues of political correctness and "tolerance". Oh, and don't forget shows that depict all businesses as being corrupt and evil, and anyone who has more then ten dollars in assets as being a greedy pig. Did I forget anything? Oh, yes, more shows that depict women and minorities as being the best and wisest of all people, next to gay men, and all adult hetero males as being stupid, crass, useless and disgusting. That pretty much covers it.

[Chewbacca]

Mail ordered them from a catalog along with the entire Blackadder series.

I think the catalog name was Signals or something.
It had a lot of BBC and PBS movies for sale in it.

I am saving up to get the Horatio Hornblower DVD set.

[Old Professer]

Probably something far more prosaic, like their second jobs in the evening to pay for all the liberal social programs.

[RebelBanker]

With that screen name, you mean to tell me you don't watch Enterprise?

I know, a lot of fans of the older serieses seem to dislike the newer ones. I still do not like about half of the first season of ST:TNG...

[leadpencil1]

You have no TV service in your house, like cable of dish?

[chiller]

Anything with a laugh track insults my (albeit limited) intelligence.

[kittymyrib]

yes, and two other words: fantasy football

[Republicus2001]

Funniest shows ever made, in no particular order: 1. Fawlty Towers 2. Coupling (BBC) 3. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (BBC comedy-drama miniseries) 4. Red Dwarf 5. The Job (too funny for ABC, knew it couldn't last) 6. Frasier (before it degenerated into a soap/morality play) 7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

only two tv shows ever made me laugh out loud - Honeymooners and Seinfeld...

[Brett66]

I work nights so I've never seen a single episode of Friends, Joe Millionaire, Survivor, etc. etc. If I'm home at night I'll get on the internet, play a computer game, do some productive things with my computer like photoshop work. I might take a break from the computer and I'll turn it to Discovery Wings or the History channel. If nothing's on, I'll go back to my computer. Networks lost me as a viewer years ago and they've damned themselves even more since then, I refuse to watch any of their crap ever again.