Mindless drivel on tv

HicksLennon

Hello... Just wondering if there any like minded people out there on this one. I do not understand why people waste their lives watching drivel on tv. There are countless programmes I could mention... Some of which have won many awards I'm sure. Greys anatomey, downton abbey, entourage, eastenders, home and away, bones, lost, corry, x factor... First off before anyone threads back to say ''but millions of people watch these shows, these shows have won awards etc etc etc" I am well aware of this and I don't care. In the music world Justin beiber, westlife, lady Gaga have won awards and sold millions.... Does that make me think they are any good..... eh No. I believe there is an endless queue of dead eyed zombies prepared to buy into all types of shi*e. I am a big movie fan and I do watch the odd great tv programme too bit I can't understand how people put up with crap storylines, charachters with no depth, bad acting etc... Do not understand it. Just looking to see if there are people who hold the same opinion on this as I have scoured the net to find a board that rants on these programmes. I am well aware that I am in a minority here but willing to throw it out there. Be gentle! He he he

bodhrandude

Yeh a lot of television is plain crud, but I did just watch A Bronx Tale on TV3 so not so bad, there is too much reality tv nonsense though.

PrettyBoy

Have to agree, almost everything on TV is terrible and has been for years. Have to admit I did watch Entourage for the last 3 years or so, really liked it at the start but the quality of the episodes dropped dramatically season after season.

I barely watch TV at all these days, maybe 3 hours a week at a guess. If I do it will be for a good film (just watched 'A Bronx Tale' tonight and 'Presumed Innocent' last week). I can't understand how a worrying number of people I know can sit through pure rubbish like X-Factor, Eastenders, Coronation Street, Teen Mom, etc. Genuinely, trying to watch them is a painful experience.

I have The Wire and The Sopranos collections on DVD, have heard good things about Boardwalk Empire but haven't seen it yet.

EDIT: Curb Your Enthusiasm is very good too, but it's not on any of the basic channels? Just realized all of the shows I watch are made by HBO..

Tipsy McSwagger

On one hand Television has been destroyed by reality shows and the publics continuing fascination to minor celebrities. TV stations realize a reality show costs a lot less to make than a fictional show, due to not having to pay for actors and screenwriters. Talentless idiots like Peaches Geldof, Katie Price, Kerry Katona and Peter Andre get their own shows, and there are too many cooking, restoration, slimming and fashion shows clogging up our screens. But on the other hand the US is making some seriously excellent tv. Breaking Bad is the best show I have ever seen but it's not available to watch across the pond. Even if it was it would be on at one in the morning while muck like The X Factor gets prime time slots 2 nights a week.

James T Kirk

BBC FOUR is the only channel that truly stands out from the crowd. Its documentaries make even the most mundane things interesting, and it's the best music and drama channel too.

It's the only channel I'd really miss if it was gone. Which, given the recent BBC budget cuts, is very likely to happen.

BrensBenz

Entirely agree with above: wall to wall cookery programs without recognised measurements / recipes; WW2 programs and Strictly Come Dancing - why???; Unheard of and talentless "celebrities"; Reality TV??? Point a camera and sound boom at an amateur and tell me he / she is behaving naturally. And the world doesn't need any more singers, particularly when being used as mere cannon fodder for airhead judges living in their own soap operas!
Cause? There is only a certain amount of talent in this world (thousands of twenty-somethings with Meeja Studies degrees don't count) but an explosion in the amount of TV channels. Therefore the available talent is spread very thin and the gaps are filled by this dross.
Remedy: None, I'm afraid. If it sells, it will continue to be sold.
Alternative: Get out more! No really - no disrespect intended. The world is a fantastic place. For instance, I was in a music shop recently when an elderly man put an American banjo on his knee and proceeded to stun staff and customers with his ability, handed the intrument back and left the shop. X-Factor my @$$. Or try a stroll through some woods in Wicklow; Lough Erne (in better weather); family - you'll miss the gran and grandad when they're gone, etc.

mike65

BBC4 is a beacon of hope in a morass of mediocrity I even started a thread in praise of the channel.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056423551

Feel free to chip in

PaulieBoy

+1 To all above! TV is just a bad habit that is very easy to get sucked into. It works for the vast majority of the people so that's the way it is. Agree with the HBO thing: some quality stuff there.
Got rid of cable years ago and never once missed it.

briany

TV is not the enemy. Any mass media can be b*stardized in the way TV has been over the last 15 years or so. If there is a demand for what the makers of all these terrible, terrible programmes put out then it will go on. The issue that I have with TV is that, in comparison with the web, it provides such a poor service in supplying the content. You're paying 70 euros a month for Sky TV and you want to watch a programme on GOLD that was made by the beeb in the 80s which originally had a runtime of 25 minutes, well GOLD have so many ad breaks that the overall runtime is now around 40. 15 minutes of ads in the allocated slot? That is insane.

I only caught 5 minutes of the X-Factor last night? The singing I was non-plussed by but all I could think was "What's going on with the severe hairstyles?". It's a strange show if you only glimpse it very very occasionally.

don ramo

if i didnt have a motherboard and processor between me and my tv i wouldnt be watching anything, ive meticulously assembled my own tv package over the last 3 years:D,

paddyandy

With the internet i can choose parts of a program to watch with the scroll bar.Fckd. the TV out long time ago,radio on for the news.Don't miss it.Loads of news on net free.

Mr E

An increase in the number of channels doesn't necessarily mean an increase in good TV to watch. You still have to filter, but there is lots of worthwhile stuff to watch. More channels means you have to put more work into it though. Most primetime TV is lowest common denominator TV for the masses, and its very easy to miss the good stuff.

Stick around this forum though.... I've learned about a lot of terrific shows from the regulars here that I may not have otherwise found out about.

ixoy

You're just not watching the right shows.

If I stuck with terrestrial TV, and the schedules, I'd be like you. Utterly dispirited with the reality shows clogging up the TV and tired attempts of drama. However, using the wonders of the web, I dictate my own selection and choose from some superb TV shows airing out there.
Some of the stuff being output from outlets like HBO, Showtime, and AMC is fantastic - far better than 95% of anything churned out from the Hollywood studios. Same goes for some of the comedies, such as "Community" which surpasses any British show I've seen in the last decade.

Check out the sticky on TV shows in the forum for what to select and realise there's great quality TV around,away from the mediocrity you'll see on a day-to-day basis. Just a matter of knowing what to look for.

mike65

What's all this watching tv on the net stuff? Who's got the bandwidth/cap for that?

old hippy

It's not the cruddy programmes that irk; I can always avoid them. It's the ad breaks - if you're watching live there's no getting away from them :mad:

FreudianSlippers

mike65 wrote: »

What's all this watching tv on the net stuff? Who's got the bandwidth/cap for that?

UPC is 5000gb a month, speeds up to 100mb in some places in Dublin.

There are various ways to watch TV on the web, most of them I cannot tell you about.

audi a4 2008

all i watch is discovery channel:D
and yes i know im boring ha ha:)

Minstrel27

mike65 wrote: »

What's all this watching tv on the net stuff? Who's got the bandwidth/cap for that?

I have no cap.

don ramo

mike65 wrote: »

What's all this watching tv on the net stuff? Who's got the bandwidth/cap for that?

eircom have 24MB broadband packages with an unlimited DL capacity, which i think is about E60-70 a month, i think thats there current top package, and other providers also have similar if not better packages,

FreudianSlippers

don ramo wrote: »

eircom have 24MB broadband packages with an unlimited DL capacity, i think thats there current top package, and other providers also have similar packages,

Just FYI, that "unlimited" policy is subject to a fair usage policy of 250GB up and down per month.

don ramo

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Just FYI, that "unlimited" policy is subject to a fair usage policy of 250GB up and down per month.

it would take a very special person to reach that:D

FreudianSlippers

don ramo wrote: »

it would take a very special person to reach that:D

It's not as hard as you might think... UPC used to have 250/month and I reached it every month in usually 20 days.

don ramo

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

It's not as hard as you might think... UPC used to have 250/month and I reached it every month in usually 20 days.

your gonna need about 3 foot of snow this winter to cool your house/server, thats an insane amount of DLing:eek::eek:, most ive known i done was about 110GB,

BrensBenz

Looks like I'm in a minority of one who believes that if the TV companies "throw" their output into the air / atmosphere, I shouldn't have to pay a fortune to retrieve a tiny fraction of it!
Freeview / Saorview for me so, despite the synchronised and elongated ad breaks; staggered cookery shows; celebrity nose-picking; American comedy shows written by committees and voyeuristic freak medical shows.
If TV signals can traverse our solar system and beyond, what must those alien life forms think of us???
Bring back The Epilogue and Close-Down at 11:30pm.

Fishooks12

****e telly has always been in the majority and always is, same with the music industry

Still plenty of excellent television shows being made, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Peep Show and Arrested Development to name but a few

If you don't like the rest don't watch

mikom

Same amount of good TV being made as ever was.
You just gotta walk through a few more McDonalds outlets to get to the delicatessen.

ejmaztec

mikom wrote: »

Same amount of good TV being made as ever was.
You just gotta walk through a few more McDonalds outlets to get to the delicatessen.

You should stop watching those wall to wall cookery programmes.:eek:

HicksLennon

BrensBenz wrote: »

Entirely agree with above: wall to wall cookery programs without recognised measurements / recipes; WW2 programs and Strictly Come Dancing - why???; Unheard of and talentless "celebrities"; Reality TV??? Point a camera and sound boom at an amateur and tell me he / she is behaving naturally. And the world doesn't need any more singers, particularly when being used as mere cannon fodder for airhead judges living in their own soap operas!
Cause? There is only a certain amount of talent in this world (thousands of twenty-somethings with Meeja Studies degrees don't count) but an explosion in the amount of TV channels. Therefore the available talent is spread very thin and the gaps are filled by this dross.
Remedy: None, I'm afraid. If it sells, it will continue to be sold.
Alternative: Get out more! No really - no disrespect intended. The world is a fantastic place. For instance, I was in a music shop recently when an elderly man put an American banjo on his knee and proceeded to stun staff and customers with his ability, handed the intrument back and left the shop. X-Factor my @$$. Or try a stroll through some woods in Wicklow; Lough Erne (in better weather); family - you'll miss the gran and grandad when they're gone, etc.

Love what you say about cannon fodder air headed judges soap drama life, absolutely brilliant. And also comment on go for a walk etc. Thank you

krudler

mike65 wrote: »

What's all this watching tv on the net stuff? Who's got the bandwidth/cap for that?

thats how I watch all my tv, my regular shows are The Walking Dead, Big Bang Theory, Boardwalk Empire, 2 Broke Girls, An Idiot Abroad, and catchup stuff on 4OD, its all HD files so over a gig each,along with movies and online gaming. am with magnet on their 24mb unlimited line, I asked before what their cap was and they said said as long as its not like 1000 gbs a month you're fine. think I used 280 gigs last months give or take

paddyandy

THE nonsense in the media means you are wiser than the level it's aimed at ...it's part of the pains of ."Wisdom increases Sorrow"

mike65

krudler wrote: »

thats how I watch all my tv, my regular shows are The Walking Dead, Big Bang Theory, Boardwalk Empire, 2 Broke Girls, An Idiot Abroad, and catchup stuff on 4OD, its all HD files so over a gig each,along with movies and online gaming. am with magnet on their 24mb unlimited line, I asked before what their cap was and they said said as long as its not like 1000 gbs a month you're fine. think I used 280 gigs last months give or take

I'm so out of touch!

adox

If anything I think the quality of the "good" tv has increased over the last 10-15 years, nearly exclusively from the other side of the pond.

Online is the best source for sure. Speeds are getting better with ISPs and monthly caps are slowly but surely getting larger at an affordable price.

I'm with Vodafone and have a 300GB monthly allowance.