TAKE A POLL
It is not necessary for a person to qualify as one of the world's few remaining, internationally-known brain surgeons,or to claim that you are rightfully the fastest peanut sheller in the country, to decided that what we call “television programming” is getting to be of poorer quality each year. I met one such individual just this past week,who thinks at the production people who make so much of TVs programming material have collectively, it seems, gone stark, raving mad. Not just ”off their rocker”,or some other witty way to say “they don't have all of their allotted potatoes, mashed, fried, or even powdered.
They may not be that bad off, but some of them are, indeed, well...sick.
Many of them are making use of the reruns on half a dozen stations. If anything, Raymond is now loved by everybody – plus. Certainly,TV show producers must see what happens when they kill a successful show. “Friends” did it. “Raymond” made the transition just as others have done in the past. How many times do you watch Andy Griffith in his various roles, how about “G:Green Acres”, The Munsters,”, “The Adams Family, Lawrence Welk and others? The re-run is not new. One can easily
see the money re-runs must pays at other doorsteps. Of course, it could also be true that producers actually fare better financially - if they drop an older show and go with a new one- even if it is known to be inferior in some ways.
It is not at all clear just what money arrangements are made by “rentees” and “rentors” of such properties and it may well be that the original owners ,even the stars performing the leading roles,
are making a”second killing” all over again in some manner. So, we may not be aware of the forces which drive changes whereby good shows are ended and replaced by ones which seem, to us, to be inferior. Money talks, and in a host of local dialects, as well.
We get so used to certain favored shows that we fail to see changes which occur as the year as the years go by. That which seems normal and right for us might not so appear to those who live about us – the growing group in our midst; those we know and live with. The characters on the shows mature and grow older. Part of the reason for such changes in favorite shows depends, you see, on you. It is not always some “high-paid numskull” in TV production land who decides he final favorite show date. Each of us contributes in our own, small way.
A.L.M . December 26, 2005 [c458wds]
