EXCESS = SUCCESS! The current producers of TV programs seem to be convinced that
success stems from excess.
That's the feeling one gets as we are beset with "new" shows built roughly on the ultimate levels achieved by the dying season. How rough can we be and hope to get by with doing so? The American people, they insist, also equate excess with success.
The idea of incorporating some "reality" in the sometimes fanciful TV programs of our times, was hardly a new idea, but it was one which served to arouse exciting potential in many areas. Most of them, merely in order to stay alive long enough to be counted, turned, from their start- up efforts, to excessive presentations of the worst aspects of every seamy facet of life they came to dwell upon.
Initially, some of the better ones stayed "physical." They went to extremes in showing just how much the human body could withstand - hard work, unusual feats accomplished under the most soul-searing circumstances one might imagine . Those early shows set forth the idea that man surviving the worst Nature could throw their way by letting the cast of persons taken to what was supposed isolation on an always adequate and readily available topically-terrained and mountainous island haven which was biologically blessed with effusive animal, vegetable and mineral life in natural and mutated forms. Each episode proffered exotic and common worms, bugs, beetles, and other such wonders.. It proved to be amazing what a human will eat when money is set forth in sufficient quantities. It did not long remain "daring".It quickly proved to become disgusting.
Other types of shows got with the changes quickly. Some well-established quiz and panel shows quickly upped their antes so contestants could get more take-home money and gifts. Home shows which had been redoing rooms, now took to remodeling entire homes for free in a frenzy of makeovers. Commercial mentions have increased, as well. Where you used to make-do with six or eight spots you now get ten or twelve spots padded expertly with public service and station romo spots telling of an excess of excesses forthcoming.
Get ready. Over stock on your coffee(s), your pop-corns(s) and your sugar(s).
A.L.M. July 16, 2005 [c390wds]
