Badmovies.org Forum

It all started when the writers went on strike.

I used to watch heaps of tv before that happened.  I had my fave shows I would watch religiously.  I'd get annoyed at the ads, annoyed at the networks switching show times and dates around without warning, annoyed at shows not starting on time and being finished abruptly to conform with arbitrary viewing schedules.

I put up with all that, just to watch my shows.  But since the strike happened, all the shows I love pretty much stopped and were replaced by repeats.  So I stopped watching for a while.  I bought DVDs, or read or listened to music or knitted.  Something else to while away my time.  And I discovered that I don't really care about tv any more - even my fave shows I'm just like, "meh".  Probably because I know that I can get them all on DVD and watch them at my leisure without interruption.

So now, I've torn off the shackles of the whims of network executives and advertisers promoting goods that are ecologically unsustainable (cars) or bad for my health (KFC) or just unnecessary (the seasons' latest must have clothing).

And I must say I'm much happier for it.  No longer is my daily schedule a slave to viewing timetables.  I seem to have more time to do everything I need to do.  I'm more relaxed when I come home because the house is quiet.  All my hobbies are getting more of my time and effort and the results are worth it.

I'm talking with my son more.  We spend more time bonding over the dinner table.  The dishes are getting done each evening.  There are actually clean clothes in the drawers and closets, no wet towels on the bathroom floor.  Floors are vacuumed, toilets cleaned.  Even beds are made.  All without rush or stress.

One of my new year's resolutions was to simplify my life.  I thought I was doing pretty well until I stopped the telly.  Now, the peace is amazing.  I highly recommend turning off the telly for at least a week.  You'll probably discover a wonderful life you never knew you had.

I stopped watching TV (with rare exception) a long time ago.  I only watch the news or sports.  I can't watch the garbage they're churning out.

Good for you.

We don't watch TV either -- haven't for quite a while.   It's a good thing.   :hot:

Being a slave to tv timetables and schedules is a definite nuisance. I too found I could never keep up with it. That's what I think I love most about DVDs, it allows to me watch my favourite shows whenever I feel like it. And I've actually discovered by expanding my horizons and buying even more of the cheap DVD Classic TV collections that I actually like shows like Mr. and Mrs. North, Bonanza, The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. I still watch TV occassionally but my TV is almost always tuned into classic TV channels like Canada's DejaView, Prime and TVLand (we have about 6-7 channels here now showing mostly TV classics). These channels I can usually turn on whatever time I like and find something of interest on one of them anyways.

Our networks have gone mad here.  Now they have sub channels to the regular free to air viewing.  It's called "HD TV" and you need a set top box to view them.  So it's kind of like cable but without the expense, once you pay hundreds of dollars for the box.

It's insane.  I refuse to buy one.  They are like highway robbers doing that.  It also seems like a half way house for all the z-grade "tv personalities" to go so they can still earn their undeserved huge salaries and still churn out mindless pap.

I seriously weep for our culture.  :buggedout:

Welcome to the club!  :teddyr: I've been without TV for quite awile now. Our satelitte was cut off sometime back.I watch dvds or vhs at just before bed...'bout it.
I don't miss it too much. I read (a lot!),read newspapers,listen to the radio,draw,walk ( a REAL lot!) and do work around the house. Never really watched TV too much in the last 10 years. If then...it was the news,documentaries and old movies.

I really should join you guys.  If it weren't for the wife and kids I think I would.  I never really "watch" anything on TV.  I'll record movies occasionally, but I find them impossible to watch because of all the commercials and the banner ads that pop up during the show.  Later I edit the commercials out, and add them to my collection.  And I almost never watch that stuff - I think I'm more interested in having a collection than in watching anything in the collection.  When you look at how much cable costs, I could use the money to buy DVD's and actually have a lot more to watch than I do now. 

But, the wife and kids would kill me, so...   :question: 

And don't even get me started on my cable company's HD lineup, it's pathetic.  They want $13 a month plus $50 installation, and they've got about a dozen channels that range from uninteresting to unwatchable.  Half of their "HD" channels only have one or two shows a day in HD.  One of them was just showing something called "Dan Rather Reports" over and over and over all day.  It was their entire broadcast schedule for that particular day.  There's no way in hell I'm going to spend a pile of money to sit and watch crap that I can't even stand just to say "Oh, but the picture quality is amazing".

I've pretty much joined the club for the most part.  Most of the shows I liked where shows back in the late 80's and early 90's so I pretty much just don't care for it anymore.  The only thing I still watch TV for is sports and the news.  Other than that is it. 

Personally I would just get rid of the cable TV at my house, but I don't pay the bills, so I obviously can't do that.  If I was on my own I wouldn't even have it to begin with.  Just have cable as my internet connection and just use the TV for video games and DVD's.

You can't readily get rid of the TV unless you and your wife are on the same page about it.

But if you and your wife agree, what can your kids say about it?  Naw-thing.    And I've got to admit, I'm glad my six year old doesn't watch TV.

I finally got around to cancelling our cable subscription yesterday. It wasn't a planned thing to stop watching, but the whole family just kind of stopped turning on the set in favor of reading, internet surfing, or other things. I can't say I really feel like I have more time since it was a gradual thing, but I certainly don't miss it.

I haven't cancelled my cable yet, but, I will say that maybe, 90% of it I ignore.  I think I watch maybe ten shows on a regular basis.

Dan Rather - what a berk  *lol*

My son has a little tv in his room.  I only got it about 6 months ago.  Before that we only had the tv in the living room.  He's still not used to seeing me on the couch with the telly off, even if I'm reading or knitting. 

He'd still rather watch tv with me, especially if we're watching the same thing.  Last night he watched Sarah Connor Chronicles in the living room while I was knitting.  I've been spending so much time in front of my work pc that I can't watch another screen at night - I've been getting bad eye strain lately.

Since my rents are thinking of switching from cable to sat TV I told what I would do If I was the only one living in the house, and paying the bills, I told him I would just get rid of the cable and just keep our cable internet connection.  I told him since I can get the news online which I pretty much do now anyways, and if I wanted to watch certain sporting events, I could either watch them online, (Usually a NASCAR race or similar to that), or go to a bar that I know will have it on.

Nowadays they seem to oversell T.V programmes as much as they do movies. The listings magazines talk-up some shows like they were the elixir of life!

I agree JJ.  Burn Notice was billed as the answer to all mankind's ills when it first aired.  I saw the promos and thought it looked like s**te, so I didn't even bother.  And that Women's Murder Club.  WTF?  Talk about lame-o.  That chick still sounds like she's smoked way too many cigarettes in her life.

Any time a show is billed as "must see" and "critics choice" or "taken the US by storm" I deliberately don't watch it.  Everything is overhyped and underdone.  It's like the overuse of sex.  They use it sell EVERYTHING.  It's information overload for me.  I don't even bother any more.

It's not hard to take the US by storm as far as TV goes.  We'll (not me but the royal "we") watch anything if it is mildly humorous and has a catch-phrase. 

Don't get me started on "reality" TV.  I was on a cruise (Navy, not Carnival) when the first Survivor came out.  My ship pulled in and we were shocked to find out that everybody had been watching this show.  I remember sitting in a bar with my buddy the night of the final episode and there was nobody in there.  The TV above the bar was playing it so we decided to play darts.  It was surreal because I thought the show was dreck of lowest order.

I would say I'm definitely not in the club of non-TV watchers.
I have a DVD recorder and at the beginning of each week, I check the TV schedule on Yahoo TV (http://tv.yahoo.com/) and set the timer for all my shows.

They are as follows:

Mon: Family Guy re-runs on TBS, King of the Hill re-runs on Fox

Tue: Family Guy re-runs on TBS, King of the Hill re-runs on Fox.  Hell's Kitchen premiers April 1st so I'll be recording that.  (love that show!)

Wed: Family Guy re-runs on TBS, King of the Hill re-runs on Fox

Thur: Lost, Crime 360, The First 48 (both on A&E)

Fri: Battle 360 on The History Channel, Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO

Sat: If the Saturday night new movie on HBO is a good one, I'll record it.  Recorded Blades of Glory last weekend.  (hadn't seen that one)

Sun: Ebert & Roeper at 5:30 am, New episodes of Family Guy and King of the Hill

So yeah, I do watch a lot of TV.   :wink:

I totally agree about reality tv.  I was on holiday in Canada when it first came out.  I couldn't believe people were watching it.  How real could it be when they are living with the production crew every day?  And all those trials they go through would never happen if they were really stranded on a deserted island.

If it ended up like Lord of the Flies, then it would be interesting because it would survival in the truest sense.  All shows like that do is make uninteresting losers famous for 5 minutes and then they disappear into obscurity where they belong.

It's funny, you know: when I was a teenager, watching TV whenever I could was fun because my parents forbade me to do it. Also, when I went to college, I was a major fan of all line-drawings, be they comics or cartoons, so for a while I watched the Batman/Superman Adventures show on the WB Channel. Then I got introduced to anime and fansubbing and the whole online fan community built up around it, and started to appreciate how those stories generally had a beginning and an ending and I didn't have to be on anyone's schedule to see the whole thing.

Of course, anime didn't stay novel and exciting to me forever, but after a while, I began to see that my parents were right about the sheer mind-numbing banality of TV; it didn't help that when my roommate and I were watching TV in the dorm's TV room, he got easily distracted and took to channel surfing to other shows during the ads, such that I could never really keep up with what was going on in any one story line. To make things worse, I had to agree with him that the ads were really mind-numbing and I didn't care to see them. The bottom line is that after a while, I just gave up on TV altogether and took to watching only stuff I could get on a tape, a DVD, or my computer.

To make matters even more interesting, years later after I'd graduated, I took some further courses in a community college, and for one of them, I was asked to write papers based on television shows at least twice. The first was just a paper about my "favorite" TV show. Since it had been years since I'd watched anything on TV, this could have been problematic. However, I figured that my anime collection is essentially Japanese TV, so I did a paper on my favorite anime of the moment, and it got a good grade.

The next paper that came up called for me to try out several of the capacities of MS Word, specifically its multiple-mailing function, and the assignment was to imagine I was going on Survivor and that I was writing this letter to several of my friends to ask them to come celebrate with me or something. I was, moreover, instructed to "be enthusiastic" about this. Now I certainly wasn't watching Survivor or anything even remotely like it at the time, so I didn't know much more about it than what I read in the news. Judging by what I'd heard, I wouldn't have wanted to be on it anyway.

Therefore, I decided to take the whole fantasy angle of this setup to an extreme and pretend that I was some kind of super-villain seeking revenge on all popularity contests and their sponsors for the way I'd (supposedly) been treated by all the popular kids in their contests in high school. (I might have felt that way if I hadn't been homeschooled through high school; I certainly felt that way about the middle school I'd previously attended.) Thus, my letter was a summons to a great many other unpopular former classmates (all fabricated entities, of course) to whom I was appealing to come bring the parts to assemble a mind-control beam and help me wreck the show, nuke the audience, and kill all the other cast and crew. In short, I made myself out to be very enthusiastic about annihilating Survivor and killing everyone involved in it.

That paper got a perfect score.

On my first visit to Mexico I went two months without television and I can't say that I really missed it very much. Sure, I missed some stuff I'd wanted to see but there was so much else to see and do that I got over it. I also went those two months without fast food and now I watch less television and don't eat McDonalds or Burger King anymore. Time away really does work  :thumbup:

Our TV broke last year and we went about 9 months without one.  It was an adjustment, but it did get us to listen to a lot more music at home.  In December we had a really sick baby so were homebound holding a sleeping li'l girl 24/7, after two days of that, I was sent out to buy myself an early Christmas present.  So I got a small, but high end TV. 
So far we have really not gone back to watching it.  I watch a few shows when I can catch them, and they are mostly "nerd" shows.
1) How its Made- a Canadian-made science channel showing, believe it or not, how stuff is made.
2) Modern and Ancient Marvels on the History Channnel.
3) Seattle Mariner's baseball, not a "fan" but I like a good game.
4) Good Eats on Food TV. 

There are some other ones, but I never set my schedule around TV.  No TV show is that important.
-Ed

One thing I like about reality television is that it utterly p*&^%s off that most smug, vain, conceited, worthless breed of animal life: actors!
 Although I quite like "The Simpsons" I've began to believe that 'adult animation' has mainly had the function of infantalising the population, making it acceptable for adults to watch children's programmes.

there is no catalyst like seinfeld was in the 90's.    no one going for the brass ring, just new shows made for people who like the current shows.

I have pretty much given up on television as well.

I don't have a real TV watching schedule at all anymore.

I mostly watch a lot of videos on Youtube and DVDs.

I watch pretty news and movies and a few shows on channels like the Discovery channel, I haven't watch the BIG 3 (CBS, NBC, ABC) in years and only rarely do I turn on the local news. I have about 300 channels and I think I watch less than 10 of them, some channels I just don't see the point in and other channels I block completely. (Like the Logo channel ... just don't need to see that.)

Any time a show is billed as "must see" and "critics choice" or "taken the US by storm" I deliberately don't watch it.  Everything is overhyped and underdone.  It's like the overuse of sex.  They use it sell EVERYTHING.  It's information overload for me.  I don't even bother any more.
 


Also be carefull if the following words appaer: "hip" "edgey" "irevelvet" "not your traditional_____"

There are still shows I watch, but really nothing religiously anymore.  I don't know if I'm going to be watching Heroes again when it comes back.  I didn't really care for the last season. 

There's even more dreck on tv here now if that's possible.

It's all reality rescue shows:  sick/injured animals, crappy backyards, firemen, police, beach lifeguards, sick kids in hospital, hospital emergency rooms, sick newborns in the maternity ward, the list is endless.  Now there's one that's a hybrid.  A cross between a poor/sick people rescue and backyard makoever show.  It's called Backyard Blitz or some such nonsense.

Apparently, if you're poor or in dire financial straits (but with your own house of course) and someone you love is desperately sick or in hospital, they'll come to your house and fix everything, backyard, renos, new furniture, whatever before the sick relative comes home and then they film the resulting blubbing fest.

It's enough to make me sick.  It's like Extreme Makeover, where you send a letter or vid of your ugly self pleading to be made beautiful and then a camera crew is sent to your house on some lame premise and they actually expect you to believe that it's a HUGE surprise when they tell you that you've been chosen for the show.

That's what Backyard Blitz is like.   Give me a break.

I've avoided Lost, Heroes, Desperate Housewives, Dirty Sexy Money, The Sopranos, and a few others because of those very words.  I don't watch as much tv as I used to, but I still have certain shows I go out of my way to watch.

I was exactly the same.  I did watch about 10 mins each of Lost, Heroes, Despos, but they made me barf.  I didn't bother with DSM, it looked like an updated version of Dynasty.  As for the Sopranos, to me it's a hysterical comedy.

All those idiot mobsters with their fake loyalties and stupid accents and bad taste in clothes and home decor.  Any time I see the Mafia in movies I crack up because they are just bad stereotypes of themselves.

And Tony Soprano - what a creepy sleazy ugly mofo.  The best ep I saw was when he was sick with food poisoning or something and he was vomiting and farting with explosive diahhrea.  Now THAT'S comedy   :bouncegiggle:

I didn't even watch one minute of Lost, Heroes, etc.  Just had Zero interest in them to begin with. 

My tv schedule now is primarily Law and Order (all of them, reruns mostly), Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill, Reaper and Real World.  I try to always watch the new Law and Order's when I can, but usually end up just catching the original one on Wednesday.

I love the Law and Order franchise.  But I've gone off SVU, I don't know why.  I always make time for Vincent and Criminal Intent, but the original one I'll only watch if I happen to be around.  Which is weird, because I've watched it pretty religiously since it first started.  I guess I'll just get them on DVD and start all over again.

The writer's strike affected us pretty badly here.  We are only now getting new eps and not for every show either.  NCIS has started up with the new ones.  New House eps are starting from tonight, as with new Numb3rs eps which have been going for a few weeks now.

But Back To You has died in the arse.  Not sure if they've cancelled it or just not written anything new.  But we have new Rules of Engagement and new Two and a Half Men every now and again, but mostly with reruns.

There's new episodes of Criminal Intent starting here next month.  I love Vince D'Onfrio on it, and that they brought back Logan.  SVU I've fallen out of, but pop it on if the commercial looks good.  Last week Robin Williams did a good performance on it. 

I pretty much just stick to the shows from above, with cartoons thrown in on occasion.  But I've cut out around 70% of tv.  It's mostly dvd's or repeats of South park/Law and Order/Simpsons.

I've started watching South Park again, after having abaondoned it for a few years.  It's too easy to do now that everything is on DVD.  I think if we didn't have that option, I'd probably make more of an effort to check out the shows when they're on telly the first time.

I've lately discovered Drawn Together which is shown after South Park on Monday nights.  It's the funniest, most politically incorrect show I've ever seen and I love it to bits.  It's nice to see something funny and interesting that hasn't been sterilised into oblivion.

My favourite character is Foxy, although Toot kind of makes me uncomfortable when she starts cutting herself.  I don't know why that is.  I've never been a cutter or know anyone who did it, but it's just hard to laugh at and watch sometimes.

South Park I love.  Been a fan since the first episode was shown.  Oddly enough, I've never been a fan of Drawn Together, but can appreciate some of what they try to do.  I'm a fan of Family Guy and Drawn Together (in my mind), tries to take the random cutaway jokes from that and blend it with the 'shock value' of South Park and puts it in a blender.  I have seen some episodes, and of the characters, appreciate Hammy the most.

Robot Chicken is a good one.  Don't know if you have that over there or not though.

I've seen the Robot Chicken DVDs in the stores, but I haven't seen it.  I think it's on cable, because I've never come across it on FTA telly.

It's a goody.  Might be on cable, it is here.  It's mostly stop-motion style, using toys instead of actual cartoons.  They did an all chicken version of "Law and Order" in one episode, had a Kill Bill style parody featuring the boys of NSYNC (who all voiced their characters), etc.  My favorite segment was "Senior Mutant Ninja Turtles" featuring the turtles as old men in a nursing home.

Sounds good!  I'll have to add them to my movie queue.

I've been watching even less TV lately.  I flip through the on-screen guide and not only is there nothing good on, or anything boring, but half of it is just insulting.  And could someone explain to me why some of these movie channels play the same movie three times in a row in the middle of the evening?

I used to be a huge music lover, and I've played guitar for as long as I can remember.  But around the early-mid '90s I completely lost interest in everything they were playing on the radio.  Just in the last week I've been going through all my old CD's (from the 1960's - 1980's) and giving them a listen.  Cable box - OFF.  TV - OFF.  CD player - ON.  Really need to buy some new CD's though, Ive heard everything I've got sooooo many times.  I must not be the only one, looking at Amazon pretty much every old album is being re-issued with remastered sound and from the reviews, even the fans of these bands are very happy with the higher quality mixes.

Jack, I too got tired ages ago of listening to the dreck on radio.  If you want to listen to good, new music, log onto www.radioio.com.  It's an amazing station.  That's where I discovered wonderful gems like Alex Lloyd, John Mayer, Frou Frou, Travis, Delta Goodrem, Merrie Amsterburg, Richard Ashcroft, Joseph Arthur, Joydrop, Jeffrey Gaines, Janah, Jonatha Brooke,  and many many others.  They even have Adam Ant (under his real name Stuart Goddard).  The guy can really sing and has some great songs.

It was a lovely change not to have to listen to rap and r 'n' b and all that s**te.

A couple of months ago we got a new station that calls itself TOM FM.  TOM stands for tons of music and they play no particular genre of music.  They have some strange mixes.  They mix modern stuff with disco, classic rock with 80's stuff.  Just check out Tom's last ten on their website. They play things I haven't heard in years.


http://www.magic105fm.com/main.html

I'm listenin' to some Cyndi Lauper on TOM FM  :bouncegiggle:  Girls just wanna have fun.  I could get into this!  Oh dear god, they follow it up with Elvira by the Oak Ridge Boys.  Maybe we'll try that one again a little later   :teddyr:  Radioio.com  has lots'a good stuff, Adam Ant is playing on '80s New Wave.  Haven't heard that song since about 1982!  I'll have to check out some of these other stations.

I was looking at Itunes a while back, they've got a ton of radio stations on there as well.  Wanted to run the sound from my computer (upstairs) to my stereo (downstairs), and they've got some really cool hardware to do it, but I had to have the guys at Best Buy get my printer to work with my computer...I can just imagine me buying on of these "streamers" and puzzling over it for days.  and days.  And finally giving up.

i can't stand reality tv, and do not care for crime shows much or hospital shows...game shows are boring and greedy...i like cooking shows, but rachel ray talks too much, and has all these segments that have NOTHING to do with cooking! you can keep dr phil, and the court shows too. (okay, so i like judge judy's common sense sometimes though...). I like 'Criminal MInds" sometimes, and here in washington, they just finished showing the reruns of the series "dead like me" saturday afternoons. i watched the dvds at my sons place last summer, and loved it.  i like some episodes of south park, and that star wars episode of family guy was funny. i do like ghost whisperer, but it is problematic. the show is jlhewitt's character having to restate everything the ghost says to the love ones, and 'crossing them over'...it gets old. i sort of miss the format of the 'movie of the week' that columbo, rockford files, etc enjoyed when i was growing up (my folks watched them). to have a series which viewed only once a month for about two hours made the character development better, the story arc fuller, and you did not get tired of the gimmick. i still say there are a few shows which died an early death because they burnt out early. long story short: not much out there. we do not have cable or satelite (and it is not in our budget to), and after next year unless we fork out some bucks (even WITH the coupon), we will not be able to watch local programming. (and most High Def is just the NEWS!!! As if I cared to see the teleprompter-readers pores!) sigh.