In my last post I talked about how technology has changed the dating world. This post will discuss how technology has changed the face of what used to be a major source of entertainment for a lot of us - namely television.
Our television was a big deal when I was growing up. The first TV set that I can recall gracing our household was a persnickety old black and white set in a square wooden box that sat directly on the floor. It was supposed to count as a piece of furniture, but besides frustrating us daily with horizontal lines running through often fuzzy screens it is safe to say that it made kind of a negative design statement decor wise. Nevertheless, I doubt that an entire day ever passed without multiple members of our somewhat numerous household sitting down and trying to watch something on it.
My earliest memories of television include watching shows like Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Dress-Up in the mornings while my mother got my older siblings out the door to school. (In fact, I was such a "fan" of the latter that my grandmother walked me over to the neighborhood Stedman's when he put in an appearance there, and I received my one and only celebrity autographed picture on that memorable afternoon.)
In the evenings after supper the television was always on, but most of the shows we watched don't stand out in memory. What I DO recall is the Saturday night television schedule. (That was my parent's square dancing night, and my older sisters quickly discovered that the television, in unison with a big bowl of popcorn, was an effective babysitting strategy) My oldest sister made the popcorn and hogged the bowl somewhat shamelessly. The rest of us fought for the spot on the sofa beside her while we watched Green Acres and Petticoat Junction and The Honeymooners IF we were good and thus rewarded by staying up that late.
I think I was four years old before I saw a colour television, and I was about ten when we got one. My parents must have been feeling flush because that's about the same time we got cablevision and were able to watch more than two channels. With so many new options the Saturday line-up changed too. My oldest sisters were out with friends most weekends by this point, and we four youngest Floods relied on the change my father left for "Saturday Night Treats" instead of going the popcorn route.
Television in the 70's was pretty hokey by today's standards. I know this because over the past few years my husband and I have watched several seasons of Cannon, Welcome Back Kotter, Barnaby Jones, and even the (totally cringe-worthy!) first season of Fantasy Island. For the most part, the plots were pretty thin and the acting was less than stellar, but there was still a strangely addictive quality to some of those shows that is often lacking in what passes for a sitcom today. (With the exception of Big Bang there doesn't seem to be much in that category worth watching.)
Television in the 80's is hard for me to comment on, since I went half of that decade without a television and only caught my favorite programs from that era almost a decade later as reruns. (Try telling that to your kids! Mine were quite shocked that I survived such an ordeal, but in reality I didn't feel like I was missing that much. Occasionally I walked down the road to visit my great Aunt Nell, and she'd invite me to watch All My Children with her, but otherwise I was pretty blissfully ignorant where TV was concerned.)
In the early 90's I was busy being a newlywed and a new mom and the shiny new TV my father-in-law got us as a wedding present was mostly useful as background noise and a tenuous connection to the outside world while I was busy folding diapers. The nights I walked the floors with teething babies I first began to get "caught up" on all of the 80's sitcoms that I'd missed. Otherwise that decade was filled with every incarnation of Star Trek, and some really decent series like Coach, Murphy Brown, Everybody Loves Raymond, and (my personal favorite) Picket Fences.
Sadly, television began to change with the new millennium. Suddenly we saw the rise of "Reality Shows" which soon began to dominate the airwaves. The technology that had become so prevalent in our homes seemed to awaken the voyeur in many, who now felt the urge to tune in to what was happening in the living rooms of celebrities like Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons, or to watch "real" families with very different dynamics and problems than ours. (Jon and Kate, The Little People, Sister Wives, 17 - or 18 or 19 - Kids and Counting.) Why are these shows so fascinating to the masses?
I can't offer an explanation because I don't know. All I can say is that the more "reality shows" I see previews for, the less faith I have in television's ability to entertain me. For several years my TV diet consisted of little but HGTV. It seemed that there wasn't much on offer besides "reality" (LOL!) that didn't feature vampires, gore, violence and crime investigation. (CSI - Miami, LA, who knows where else?) We have discovered some good television after the fact - (as in a season or two in), such as Alias, Chuck, Firefly, Eli Stone, Six Feet Under and more currently Castle, Eureka and Nikita. All of these are series that we've purchased on disc and enjoyed immensely. Somehow going through ALL the channels offered and trying to find anything worth watching on television this past decade has become too much like work. There are simply too many channels that mostly duplicate each other in terms of content and (ahem) - quality.
We are drowning in choices, but starving for good entertainment, in this bogger's humble opinion. Which leads to my poetic offering on the subject...
On Going Digital:
When I was five some folks I knew
included Captain Kangaroo
The Friendly Giant and Jerome -
they visited me in my home.
Old Friends they were, though never seen
except upon the TV screen.
Our television - black and white -
was entertainment day and night.
It made us laugh and sometimes cry
or heave a sentimental sigh.
On Saturdays we were content -
we all knew how the line-up went,
while popcorn bowl passed hand to hand
we toured through television land -
Green Acres to Gilligan's Isle -
and every journey seemed worthwhile.
Those "sitcoms" made in days of yore
appear in reruns evermore;
we seek them for relief, you see
from what is dubbed "reality" -
(like "housewives" surgically cloned,
all bleached and waxed and siliconed.)
No teenaged vampires call to me -
I'd rather watch HGTV!
I can watch news or endless sports
or judges sitting in their courts -
I can watch weather all day through -
so tell me - Why do I feel blue?
The answer? Digital TV!
Too much to choose, not much to see!
