Television

I hear complaints from every corner of the viewing spectrum aimed at nearly every aspect; content, time, commercialism, ratings, technology, cost, redundancy, talentless. You name it, someone is making the complaint. Actually, I don’t find it too…anything. There are times for just about anyone when its elements just plain fit a need. The complaints then are as ethereal as errant video signals trailing into the universe.
What amazes me about complaint is that any exists at all. TV is provided as an offering. It is for the most part in the “free” world a service. Service by its very nature is consumer driven. Don’t like it, turn it off. Providers will either respond to you or go out of business. If your group is too small to impact on the service profitability you don’t get service, but if you are not watching in the first place, who loses? It is economics 101.

So what do I watch? I like action, irreverence, and fiction. Well, TV should fill my days. You remove sports and the pickings get a bit slimmer. If characters that are nearer to believable than not have to be present, well TV becomes darn near unwatchable. I guess what first attracts me to any program is the face of the actors/characters. I note that sometimes characters are not at all human. Firefly has the ship, undoubtedly a character. Homer Simpson is an animation; having not watched it for more than thirty seconds tells you how much Homer attracted me. If I find the character intriguing, then I’ll hang in to see if I can appreciate any story. Being serial is real important to me. Isolated bits better have some hefty utility to attract my attention. So, you could say I am an active watcher. Having to think along the story line, analyze situations and predict behaviors and events are what hold my attention. Needless to say, I pay little attention to TV, especially the news casts, as a must do pastime. I find subtitled films most alluring since they require so much more of the viewer. The small screen makes them easys to access. Subtitles are usually abbreviations of the actual dialogue translations, so the acting and scenes must be parsed with the few words that make the screen. One must totally engage the film to absorb its content and that makes for a pleasurable viewing experience.

TV is what it is, and for the most part what we have allowed it to become. Don't complain about it to me. You see, complaining is not high on my interest indicator either.