Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Overrated television shows (volume one)

I hope the reader will forgive me for not placing hyperlinks or images for this post (and those like it), but after reading, I suppose you'll know why. Hopefully, this will be a continuing (if not so regular) feature of Monk Notes. Thanks for reading:

Roseanne (1988-1997):
I tried to like this show, but couldn't. If this is the "average joe" type of family, then most parents need to be shot. Sometimes the meanness was funny, but most of the time it was just mean.
I watched several episodes before I decided this was among the most overrated series of all time. There are funny moments, and some episodes that were touching, but mostly it was about a mean, mean woman terrorizing those who love her. That just isn't funny to me.

Friends (1994-2004):
This isn’t a bad show; it just isn’t really a good show. (Remember this is about overrated t.v.) I watched many episodes and must admit to laughing quite a bit. But I also didn’t laugh at times when the laugh track tried to encourage me. The characters are mostly unlikable except when being stupid. I suppose idiocy has its charm. Rachel, though the character who experiences the most growth over the course of the series, is, frankly, a despicable person. Most of the humor seems to be zingers based on the situations and the characters don’t really do much of anything or have real world problems. When they do, those problems become part of the humor and little is solved unless the character just learns to “deal with it.” And don’t get me started about how the show trivializes sex.

Full House (1987-1995):
Full House is one of the most irresponsible pieces of crap ever aired. Like so many television shows, this trades on the “cuteness” of its characters. And I don’t find any of them cute. The children are spoiled brats, and the plot of many shows revolves around the uptight father who each time has to learn the lesson that his children are really in charge of their lives and they know better what they should be doing. The other men, one a struggling musician and the other a struggling comedian, fill in different roles of cute “uncle”. In other words, there are three grown men who get walked on by three minor females. There are almost no laughs, and the presumed adorableness of the kids wore off really, really quickly. And every time I hear that theme song, I look for weapons. How they stayed on television beyond two years continually baffles me.

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