crap on the television

I am considering turning off any television show that features regular use of firearms. The militarization of the various crime-fighting units featured on some of my more favorite crime procedurals seems to me to be closely linked to the militarization of actual police in the world, the kind who respond to peaceful protests with SWAT-team aggression. I may have to make an exception for NCIS since they are, in fact, a military organization. And Mark Harmon is only getting hotter with age. How does that happen?

A while back I started turning off any television show as soon as I saw a hot dead chick, or a hot woman being assaulted in some way. I don't think I've watched an entire episode of Law & Order or CSI since. I don't miss them, to be honest.

The abundance of aspirational watch-people-shop TV shows is gross and boring. There are hundreds of hours of TV devoted to watching people buy real estate, wedding dresses, new wardrobes, the contents of storage units, and who knows what else. This kind of "watch people spend money" programming seems to me to be the modern depression analog to the wildly popular over-the-top musicals (Ziegfield follies et al) of the 1930s Depression. It's escapism for some, I guess, but I find it appalling. Also, watching people haggle at a pawn shop is incredibly boring. I kind of like the little historical interludes in Pawn Stars - sort of a low-rent Antiques Roadshow, really - but then the tedious and predictable haggling sequence follows, and, yawn.

Finally, as a thought experiment, I would love to see that awful Millionaire Matchmaker lady try to find a partner for an average-looking middle-aged woman who wants a hotty-boombalatty younger man to serve as arm-candy. Can you imagine a bunch of straight 30-ish dudes getting all tarted up to go stand in front of a panel and be judged and questioned as to whether he might possibly worthy of dating said average-looking middle-aged woman? Ha. Not gonna happen.