Where have I been for the last three weeks? Apparently, watching too much bad TV. The thesis for this blogpost: that this may have been the worst week of television in the medium's history. I give you three reasons to support this thesis:
1) The Jake and Vienna interview on The Bachelorette
2) The hysterical coverage of the Lindsay Lohan trial
3) The Decision starring LeBron James, arguably the greatest televised debacle in sports history.
My derision of reality television and reality "relationship shows" in particular is well-documented. But there is something about The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in particular that has always really gotten my goat. I think the fact that people watch with interest these contrived romances cooked up between a preening narcissist and a bevy of overexposed fame-whores is what bothers me more than the actual show itself. We all have a part of us that likes to be a Peeping Tom and an eavesdropper on other people's lives, but real lives lived by real people who are relatable are infinitely more interesting than what happens between people on a reality TV show. Even worse, with every new cycle of every new reality show, the contestants become more aware that they are on a reality show and therefore, in a perverse uniquely 21st century irony, less real.
Jake Pavelka [sp?], last season's contestant in The Bachelor, showed his true colors in ABC's train wreck sit-down interview this past Monday where he was joined with the "winner", Vienna to discuss their tabloid breakup. It was like a scene from Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolff?, but with characters of low intelligence, little self-awareness and a keen eye for milking audience sympathies to spin their story. How a normal person could watch any of that without feeling at least a little nauseous is beyond me.
But that was only the appetizer for this headache inducing week. Lindsay Lohan gave arguably the best performance of her "adult" career in court this week, giving a tearful plea to the judge to try and talk her way out of jail for violating the terms of her parole. Then, the entertainment press had a field day dissecting the ins and outs of this case while the high crimes and misdemeanors of British Petroleum and the oil industry at large continue to go underreported.
Finally came the pinnacle of poop, the steaming pile of crap that was ESPN's THE DECISION. I learned two things that I wasn't sure of from this spectacle--first, ESPN can never again claim to have any kind of meaningful journalistic integrity after they sell out an hour of their prime time to King LeBron James for his own self-serving purposes. Two, LeBron James isn't the player or person I thought he was. No, I'm not surprised he went to Miami to join his playmates, er, new teammates Chris Bosh and DeWayne Wade. Anybody who paid attention to the collusion of those three over the past month or so had to figure that wherever Bosh and Wade wound up, LeBron was likely to follow. But using kids from the Akron Boys & Girls Club as props for his own reality show? Referring to himself in the third person five times in his own interview with his hand-picked, paid under the table interviewer (Jim Gray)? In the future, in the online Merriam Webster dictionary, by the word hubris, there should forever be a picture of LeBron James. I'm not hating on him for his choice--what 25-year old, handsome, multimillionaire wouldn't want to choose Miami, with it's lingerie models, fast living and no state income tax as his chosen place to make a living? But there's a right way and a wrong way to do things and LeBron's way was definitely the wrongest. And there was television to serve it up to us like crack in a spoon. Slurp, slurp, slurp it all down. Try not to retch while you're doing so.
One Good Thing
It wasn't a completely disastrous week on the boob tube...the Primetime Emmy nominations were announced on Thursday and for once, there wasn't much to complain about.
I continued to be baffled by the runaway critical and popular success of GLEE (19 nominations), but this is one of those things I'm willing to admit that I might be in the wrong about. (I'm definitely in the minority.) And did we really need another nomination for Tony Shalhoub? I thought MONK was long gone? On the plus side was all the love for THE GOOD WIFE, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (it's first two acting nominations, including one that was long overdue for Connie Britton), MODERN FAMILY, DAMAGES and the HBO biopic TEMPLE GRANDIN (rent it if you haven't seen it!) Oh--and Conan got nominated, but Leno didn't. It would have been sweet to see them go head-to-head in the variety show category, but in a way Leno's omission was even sweeter. Talk about taking it on the chin.
Now, there's probably no way I'm watching the Emmys in September (it is the most unwatchable of the major awards shows), but at least I know who to root for.
Quotes of the Week
Both from Marshall McLuhan, who I could frankly use every single post:
"We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror."
"Television is called a medium because it is neither rare, nor well-done."
Peace...
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