Either I am getting too old or TV really is getting out of hand. I remember when TV shows had WRITERS, and although they may have been controversial they were not aiming for shock value. TV skit comedy shows sometimes had an edge, but the edge was clever, it was not meant for shock value. Laugh In, Second City TV, and early Saturday Night Live are good examples of this.

Is this sort of TV an example of where the entertainment taste of the younger generation has gone to?

Another disturbing US TV development is that The Daily Show and the Colbert Report frequently have more serious news coverage and interviews than traditional evening news broadcasts have.

I have to admit - I love reality tv. Survivor, The Apprentice, America's Next Top Model, The Bachelor - I'm a total addict! I would far rather watch unscripted television (although sometimes you gotta wonder if it's really that unscripted) than a sitcom. I don't agree when things get hurtful though. Does anyone remember a couple years ago they aired a show on WB called "WB Superstar"? All they were out to do was to humiliate people who couldn't sing. It wasn't a nice show.

So yes, in answer to your question, someone REALLY does watch this stuff....

**hangs head in shame**

Busymum2, don't hang your head. I have been known to get addicted to reality shows. Moving rural and rabbit ears means that I don't get as many and my tastes grew accustomed to doing without. Trust me, if people were not watching stuff like this the shows would have been cancelled a long time ago. I am sure if they were on a channel I got, there are a few I would still be watching.

I watched the original Survivor, which I thought was very creative - although I thought that it seemed more like a TV game show.

For some reason I also liked Runway (both seasons), although there was quite a bit of back biting and some really ugly clothes, there wasn't much shock value in it. Tim, a stereotypical gay, was the voice of reason that held the show together.

Does Drawn Together count?

WOW!! I had no idea that Big Brother Six had degenerated so badly. I did watch about half of the first season and found it boring and rarely watch sequels. So, no I don't watch that stuff. I am blessed to have a satellite and spend what little time I actually do watch TV watching Prime, DeJaVu, Space, and Lonestar. To me this is like reading. There is a story. The newer programs are all dissapointments. In my opinion the original Star Trek was the best of all the Star Treks and the rest of them are getting worse all the time (with the exception of Voyager)

The closest thing that comes to the feeling I get when I watch those competitive reality TV shows is my childhood memory of being extremely embarrassed whenever I'd watch Three's Company. It's the same feeling and it's like being embarrassed for humanity...the actors, the audience, the fact that this show could have an audience, the fact that I haven't turned it off yet, you name it.

Big Brother is to TV as The Conservatives is to the environment.

It makes me cry.

I have a cure. In your advancing years, have a second family. The kids monopolize the TV so you can't see it. It's like AA. it breaks the habit.

I have even gone back, or tried to, with my 200 or so channels, and it has no appeal at all.

Of course, the kids grow up as vegetables. Do you know you burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television?

graeme

Graeme, sleeping burns more calories than watching T.V. I read that too. Now, I lift weights during the commercials.

I also read (my science magazines are so chockful of info) that if you become VERY involved in "thoughts" about excercise that you actually burn calories. Sometimes I just "think" about lifting weights during commercials.

Mike, I watch "ALL" of the idol shows. Maybe if I get very involved...well, how many calories does being humiliated burn?

abpenny, you have made my day. Now, I can feel active just by thinking of running 10 K every morning before breakfast. If I think hard enough, I can look like Tarzan by summer.
graeme

I'm sixteen and I hate reality TV, even descent ones like American Idol because the people are all losers anyway and I have better things I can do with my time than watch those shows. I like sitcoms.

This may just be me though. I've noticed that I do not always agree with the general public on a lot of things.

I'm picky - Survivor caught my attention in the last 3 episodes of the first round. The second round, it seemed like people had the spirit of the game and hadn't turned it into a soap opera so we really enjoyed that, then we only made it into the 3rd episode of # 3. Enough already.
The apprentice was ok the first time, and we watched RockStar Supernova sometimes. I think I'm realitied out.
Give me my fantasy life of kids, dogs, laundry, work and not enough sleep.

Can't talk now. got to watch Favor of Love (My guilty little secret). Still trying to cut down on TV but it's the finale so I should be ok. ; )

One of the reasons I find myself at wondercafe so much is that someone turns on the TV and I find myself wandering out of the room and down to the computer. That's because you guys are a whole lot weirder than any reality show!

What writer could dream up the arguments we get into at wondercafe eh? ... graeme?

Certainly, the "Support our troops" string had "wackiness". "Emotional instability" was much in evidence too ... one of the posters later apologized for a post saying he was delusional at the time he pressed the "Send Reply" button. I'm pretty sure there was also some nudity too ... at least I imagined that the same delusional poster would probably find himself waking up nude under his computer table surrounded by burned out cigarette butts and whiskey bottles and wondering who emptied the ashtray into his mouth. In any case there was plenty of naked aggression. A far cry from "Big Brother 1, indeed. It was our very own UCC remake of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". I think we should get Ralph Steadman to illustrate it.

people who live in a society that makes them worthless have contempt for themselves. As compensation, they like the watch people even more contemptible and brutalized than they are, people they can feel superior to.

The ancient Romans had the circuses - and the gladiators and the slaves and the animals. We have TV and the world wrestling federation and survivor and whoever that ditz is who married a multi millionaire of 90 and now has a lawyer who is ripping her off.

graeme

I don't watch such programs ... I don't watch much TV.

I think that this sort of thing is the 'bread & circuses' which proceed a social meltdown and reorganization. As long as the first-world economies stay generally speaking strong, the situation will continue and grow worse. Eventually though, the whole thing will crash. That's my opinion ...