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Hundreds of channels, nothing to watch

By Micheal Boddy
Posted Monday, March 31, 2008

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Have you ever known me to complain about anything? OK, I've complained about lots of things over the years in my columns, but this time it's about true value for my money spent.

At the Last Homely House we have satellite TV, which should be able to keep me pinned to the couch, with a sandwich or a drink in one hand and a remote control in the other, while I flex one or two fingers every hour or half hour to stay in touch with the world.

As I said, that's what should be, but it's not working out that way.

As journalists we do have to keep up with news, weather, and on rare occasions sports, so we need a number of channels to keep us informed. You'd think that after all of that information is sorted through, we'd be able to find enough entertaining programs, on those hundred or so channels, to keep us happy, but sad to say, it's not so.

Of course that's complicated a bit by the shows we refuse to watch, like "Sex in the City" and "Charmed," on which we have a perfect record, having never seen a single episode. Other reruns clogging up the digital airways, like "Law and Order" and all of its spinoffs, which at one time were some of our favorites, have begun to wear thin.

Even "Monk,” the few new episodes that show up at odd times during the year, has become predictable.

How many obsessive-compulsive detective scenarios can they come up with before we can no longer suspend our disbelief?

We were saved for a while by "House,” but the writers’ strike made for a short season, and it hasn't been on for enough years for us not to have seen the reruns multiple times already.

So what's left? Not much.

Susan is fond of some of the shows on the Food Channel, which I must admit did improve her improvisational cooking style. I think she could now take a piece of cardboard, and with the right meat, sauce, cheese, and a lot of butter, make a meal better than many you'd pay for in a restaurant.

I guess it’s a good thing the growing demands placed on us by The Weekly Journal often reduce the TV to background noise.

Now if we could just get rid of our apparent addiction to "American Idol," we might be able to resume normal interaction with the rest of the human race.

And perhaps get a refund from the satellite TV folks on the rest of the channels that simply aren't worth watching.

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