Cable has come a long way since "Weirdl Al" Yankovic gave an accurate portrayal of 1980s cable. But I still have a gripe.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice that cable channel branding has lost its meaning. ABC Family running “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery”? And wasn’t AMC supposed to be for American Movie Classics? A lot of those films ain’t classic. TLC? A&E?, E!? The programming seems to be so similar for so many of the channels, with the only thing distinguishing them to the audience is the little logo in the corner of the screen. How many more shows featuring the following subjects do we really need?
-Plastic surgery
-Weight loss
-Cooking (maybe we wouldn’t need so many weight loss shows if we weren’t watching food preparation on TV all of the time)
-Addicts
-House remodeling/flipping
-Follow a celebrity around as he/she does nothing in particular
-Follow a (former) celebrity around who is trying to revive his/her career and/or is looking for “love”
-Watch a bunch of young attention addicts party and hook up and sometimes live together.
Lets just get it over with. Let’s simply have one show that repeats episodes over and over again: A team of celebrities vs. a team of nobodies compete for weight loss and career success while undergoing plastic surgery, dealing with addiction, preparing food, living together in a house they are renovating, and partying. It will be great to see the tension between the chefs and the dieters, the partiers and the people trying to keep the house in good condition.
I was prompted to write this because I’m exposed to a lot more basic cable programming right now, with the baby keeping us home and keeping us awake.
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