Matthew Zimmerman

These days, the network executives have decided that they don't need to build audiences for shows anymore. Unless 10 million people start watching a show immediately after it premieres--oh, and it doesn't need any publicity, does it?--and continue to watch it as it bounces from time slot to time slot, that show clearly needs to be canceled right away. It doesn't matter how well the show is written or acted, or how clever or original the storyline-- if it doesn't have the numbers RIGHT AWAY, it goes into the trash. (Okay, I'm specifically thinking about Wonderfalls here, but it's a story that's repeated itself with disturbing regularity nowadays.)

And when the dust settles, all you have left are generic police dramas, a few carbon-copy sitcoms, and "reality shows" (which is certainly the most evil television genre ever invented, and quite possibly a sign of the apocalypse). So it feels good to support the few good shows that are left, in the only way that TV executives apparently understand.

I was going to write a big long rant about the "abuse" at Abu Ghraib and the adminstration's response to it: about how our president says we're "free and transparent" and yet refuses prisoners-- oh, I'm sorry "enemy combatants"-- in Cuba, Iraq, and Afghanistan the slightest modicum of due process or legal protection. I'd mention the administrations' incredible arrogance, blaming everyone but themselves and refusing to even apologize until they are forced to by political pressure here in the U.S...

I was going to go on for a while about this, until I saw that David already said everything I wanted to say (very eloquently, I might add). So go read his post, and then just imagine me shouting "Me too! What he said!"