I feel like there’s almost no point to television sometimes.   I’ve known TV was crap for a long time, so it’s no big surprise.  In a 2-hour episode of The Biggest Loser, I watch probably grand total of 45 minutes — the rest I just fast-forward through.  In an hour show, I get maybe 35 minutes of true footage.

I’m so sick of all the previews.  Commercials show the whole damn show, practically. The preview they show before the show starts (for FIVE MINUTES) reveals everything we’re about to see. The preview before each commercial break shows us 30 seconds of what we’re about to see when they’re done recapping for another 30 seconds after the commercial.  Then they maybe show me 3 seconds of real show they already showed me in the preview and then preview what’s about to happen next. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now it’s happening in the ‘info’ on cable, too. I was sorting out my shows and was checking to see if something was a repeat. I hit ‘info’ on a particular episode and it told me the entire episode in detail, down to the ‘shocking surprise’. Thanks, now I don’t have to watch the show.  Assholes.

I don’t even bother going to the movies anymore. Why pay $10 for something I can see for free in the commercial?  Then the moment a movie actually hits theaters, the morning that it opens, before anyone has a chance to even see it, they show even more of it in the previews.  You just saved me $10 and my firstborn child for a box of Red Vines.  Thanks, Hollywood!

I tallied up the amount of series I have listed in my ‘scheduled series’ profile and it’s something like fifty. Fifty shows.  Granted, not all at once, most shows are cyclical and seasonal and only are about 8-12 episodes. Its not like I watch fifty shows at once. But seriously… fifty shows?  As Oprah would say, what am I hungry for?   Why does anyone have that much scheduled television?  Because there’s no show in my show!  I’m entertainmentally deficient! Showtime and HBO series (and sometimes Bravo) provide actual nutrients, but everything else is just empty calories.  Television is the 64 oz. Big Gulp of media.

And on top of that, now that so many people have DVR, shows automatically run 2-3 minutes beyond their scheduled end-point so that you purposefully lose the end of the show. I think they do it to discourage recording the show since television is losing advertising dollars due to the almighty fast-forward button.  Fortunately, AT&T U-verse has a “record until 5 minutes past” feature, which is handy, but I still think it’s shifty.

Gee, perhaps all this griping will get me to whittle the series list down to a manageable 35 or so.  Probably not.  But it does make me realize I really do have time to go to the gym… *sigh*