Don't-See TV

I promise that I'll try not to do this too often, but I'm going to have to rant - just a little bit. I promise that I'm not a major couch potato. I would rather read than watch TV, but I do turn the TV on for background noise while I'm cooking, and there are a few shows that I watch regularly. This posting is not about those shows - the good ones. This is about the bad shows. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Really? There are lots of awful shows on TV." Very true. I'm just going to focus on the ones that are particularly annoying to me at this time.

Jon and Kate Plus Eight:

I'm not ashamed to admit that I have never watched an episode of this show, but I sure am sick of hearing about it. I'm tired of all of the drama surrounding the parents on this show - did Jon cheat on Kate? What's the big announcement that the couple will soon make? How will this affect the show?

Can I respond with a question of my own? Thank you. Who the f*** cares?! These are people who took advantage of an opportunity - and who could blame them? Raising eight kids is no walk in the economic park. Still, they have brought this on themselves, and in my opinion have not considered the long-term effects of this stupid reality show on their children. I know that the children are reaping benefits indirectly, but I'm sure that no one asked their permission to appear in this show. What happens when they get older? If Jon and Kate do file for divorce, how are they going to be able to deal with that? My parents' divorce was bad, but it wasn't on national television.

Flavor of Love:

I swear to you that I'm not making this show up. Remember Flavor Flave, the guy who wears clocks around his neck and big Viking helmets? This show is all about him. It's like The Bachelor, with Flave as the Bachelor. This is a show that consists of Flave trying to choose from a bunch of pretty but psycho women, who obviously do not respect themselves or each other. It's cat-fight central. I only know about this show because it appears on the TV Guide channel, which also has the programming schedule, and I have to mute the channel whenever it's on - it's that bad. I assume that this ridiculous show is on the TV Guide channel because no other network would stoop so low.

Whale Wars:

I understand if none of you have heard of this show. Being the major geek that I am, I like to watch channels like National Geographic and Discovery. Whale Wars is on Animal Planet. It's a documentary show following the exploits of a group of activists who use every means short of outright violence to stop Japanese whalers from killing whales in the Antarctic. Please understand that I'm not expressing disapproval of their goals - I think that killing whales is a long-outdated and barbaric practice, and the Japanese whalers are using loopholes in the law in order to continue. They claim that they're conducting "scientific research". Killing whales for profit is obsene, okay? That being said, these activists are complete morons. They call themselves the "Sea Shepherds", and they were founded by a guy who was kicked out of Greenpeace. In fact, Greenpeace wants nothing to do with them at all. Basically, this is a ship full of idealists who are under the delusion that if they somehow manage to stop this particular whaling fleet, then whaling will be stopped, permanently, all over the world. Has the thought crossed any of their minds that there just might be more than one whaling ship in the world? And that's not even the worst part - for me, at least. The worst part is that most of these people have such a disdain for "the system" or "the Man" or any kind of authority that the way the ship is run is an absolute joke. In the first episode, three crew members were almost killed because the person who was lowering their small boat into the water had no clue what he was doing. If these people really cared about the whales, you'd think they would step up their game.

Okay. My rant is done now. Mostly. There will always be shows on TV that really suck. I'll just have to content myself with the good ones. I just had to rant a little in order to make myself feel better.