When TV Jumped the Shark

The school year has ended and I have begun to waste away in my own unemployed crapulence. Needless to say I am faced with a lot of free time and the tedious task of filling it. I’ve taken on a few different strategies to cope. First of all, I’ve found that sleeping can kill a great deal of time. Seriously. I just lie down, close my eyes, and I sleep. Sometimes up to 8 or 9 hours a day! For much of my remaining waking hours I struggle to keep myself busy because, well, you can’t masturbate all of the time. Trust me, it bleeds. To remedy the situation I’ve turned to masochism. That’s right, I’ve returned to my old friend, the television.

TV and I used to be tight. It would entertain me, and I would buy the shit it told me to. The system worked. Sometime between then and now, however, TV decided that it was better than me and instead of trying to entertain me, it would just play reality television shows. Ignoring the fact that this very title is an oxymoron, I would like to point out, for the record, that reality television is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with anything ever. It’s like the studios decided that rather than giving actors good scripts and filming them, they would just not give them scripts, and film that.

The other day I was watching NBC when they introduced me to a brand new show called, I swear I’m not kidding, ‘Celebrity Circus.’ I’m just going to type that one more time. Celebrity. Fucking. Circus. Now on the off chance that your brain hasn’t physically melted and begun to ooze out of your ears, I will take this opportunity to dispel any notions of respectability and point out that it is hosted by Joey Fatone of NSync 'fame.' His last name, coincidentally, describes exactly which member he was.

There’s no way I can imagine a show like this legitimately getting greenlit. It’s so stupid, that I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s actual a parody of how dumb reality TV has become. But this in itself is a problem. I don’t want my television self aware. I can’t laugh at it if it’s in on the joke. It’s like if a Cerebral Palsy victim hobbles up to me and yells ‘DON’T CEREBRAL PALSY VICTIMS LOOK STUPID!?!” It stops being funny and starts being sad. And that is what television has become. A retarded cripple with no perception of volume.

I don’t even know how reality television became so popular. Most horrific things start off as a good idea and then quickly deteriorate. For example, Robin Williams used to be funny before he started doing a bad impression of himself. Even something as terrible as AIDS started as something as wonderful as monkey rape. Reality TV never seemed like a good idea though. It’s progression is so ridiculous I feel stupid even typing it. It starts with MTV’s “The Real World.” That show is literally just people in a house. Then it evolved into ‘Big Brother.’ Big Brother is also people in a house, but this time, somebody wins. No stepping stone from here, it was just the Big Bang of Shit. Shows pop up left and right. People in all kinds of places, falling in love with all kinds of people, and winning all kinds of crap, and then one day, Ta Da! Celebrity Circus.

Reality TV shows are so cheap and they’re being produced so fast and frequently, I fear that within a few years every single person in the world will have their own camera crew following them around for their TV show. Society will come down to nothing but an all out ratings war, with people trying to spice up their shows however they can. Before we know it there’ll be ninjas and killer robots attacking left and right. Dramatic Soap Opera style fights and explosions, paternity tests, shootouts, and just all around mayhem as everyone does everything they can to secure viewers.

Then one day, some TV executive will have the genius idea of reintroducing scripted television. Only reality will be so ridiculous that the scripted, escapist, entertainment, will just be people hanging out, reading books, and talking about the weather. Of course by then the public will be too high-brow and they’ll demand that their scripted shows be more realistic. They start incorporating ninjas and killer robots, returning television to the ridiculous entertainment we once enjoyed and reality to what we now consider normal. That is, of course, until somebody decides that reality TV is ready for a comeback. Humanity suffers on ongoing cycle of robots as escapism and ninjas as reality over and over until we all become so stupid that we stop watching television and start producing it.

The worst thing about reality TV though, is that I occasionally find myself watching it. The other day was the finale of my favorite show, ‘Interpretive Dancing with the Stars.’ Michael J. Fox won when he had to perform, ‘Earthquake.’ It was AMAZING!!

Also, it's becoming almost impossible to do anything about it. Television cronies seem to speak a different language. Terms like ‘shoulder peak’ and ‘frankenbite’ make no sense to us normal folk, but have become a part of regular vernacular in ‘TV Speak.’ Even saying something basic like, ‘shoot a pilot’ doesn’t mean the same thing for a TV executive as it does for, say, an Iraqi.

I grew up on wholesome shows. Shows like Sesame Street, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Power Rangers. Shows embracing equality and even, occasionally, intelligence. Sure there were traces of racism, like making the Asian girl the Yellow Ranger and the Black guy the Black Ranger. It probably didn’t help that when they transformed into their respective attack vehicles, they called the black one, ‘Niggerbot,’ but ultimately it taught me that regardless of race we’re all equal when fighting side by side. Even niggers.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe mankind is nothing more than entertainment for some sort of supreme being or extraterrestrials. At least then we’d be the good kind of show. The kind that isn’t in on the joke. Maybe we’re the kid with Cerebral Palsy that doesn’t know everyone is laughing at him when he falls down the stairs. It’s possible we’re nothing more than a big galactic reality show.

And I hope to god we get cancelled very soon.