Come and knock on our door...

Ah the beauty of classic TV. As I sat on my couch last night watching my Season 1 DVD of Three's Company I realized TV shows these days really suck some seriously big fucking nuts. Remember all those classic shows? The Greatest American Hero? Petticoat Junction? All in the Family, Who's the Boss, Degrassi, V, Mork & Mindy, The freakin' Cosby Show?!?! Now TV is nothing but a vast wasteland of crap with the occasional oasis of C.S.I. or Lost. Now you may think it is just nostalgia that makes these shows great but it's not. They actually stand the test of time. Sure Jack Trippers wardrobe may be a little dated and the Fonz greaser look is a thing of the past, but everything else is great! Most of these jokes and stories could have been written yesterday.

In the glory days of yesteryear we had Marc Singer killing lizards dressed as humans, an alien that drinks with his finger, Tony Danza ruling his home with an iron fist and Cliff Theodore Huxtable imparting his knowledge on all who care to listen. Now we have Freddie Prinze Jr. doing God knows what, Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer raising a bunch of dumb kids and some comedian named Rodney living in average middle America with his family. What the hell is that crap? Freddie Prinze Jr. was barely a big screen actor, let alone a TV star. Charlie Sheen? Fuck man... Spin City was one thing but this is just atrocious... That Heidi Fleiss thing must have fucked him hard. And some stand up comedian doing a TV show about living in poor suburban middle America... I liked it better the first time when it was called Roseanne.

I'm not saying all new shows suck but the quality and originality went way down hill. We have endlessly recycled garbage from old shows that in most cases were much better the first time around. Is this a new thing? No. There are some who used to say Sliders was a poor man's Quantum Leap, but does anyone remember Time Tunnel? The original time jumping TV show? Or the new hit Ghost Whisperer? I watched it three years ago when it was a little show called Tru Calling. The list goes on and on but in the end almost all TV show premises are taken from a great hit in the past. The only shows that are really "outside of the box" are new comedies like My Name Is Earl, Arrested Development or The Office (which is actually a British show originally, as was Three's Company. Coincidence? I think not!). I just hope that one day TV network execs and hack writers will try to find fresh new types of TV shows to appease the masses with, but it seems like they find one good idea from twenty years ago and endlessly recycle it. Or they find a new hit and spinoff the hell out of it ala C.S.I.

But really to be fair I think we all know that all TV show ideas are derivative of the smash blockbuster hit The Jeffersons. :P

- R