home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Written by Gears !
-
- DAYTIME TRASH
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
- Imagine : It's Monday, you have a day off work/school, you turn on the
- television..... what do you see ? DAYTIME TV !!!!! AAAGGGGGHHH !!!! There
- is no escape !!!
-
- It's strange, the minute you turn it on a couple of TV blandies appear.
- Usually a man and a woman... They smile and say "Hello, how are you." In
- a caring but "I wish I wasn't here" voice. But.... The viewer can now
- escape !
-
- Changing the channels doesn't seem to do anything, as BBC1's "Good
- Morning" is a direct copy of ITV's "This Morning" (can you spot the
- similarities ?) The BBC even immitate commercial breaks so that viewers
- can go and make a "nice cup of tea". Trying to get away from this endless
- flow of dieting tips, problem phone-ins, dress-making, recipies, "Doctor"
- spots, make-up tips, smiles, crap jokes, boring "special features", and
- yet more phone-ins isn't easy.
-
- But wait.... Let's try the huge range of channels that are available
- now that Cable TV and Satellite have appeared. After quickly looking at
- BBC2 and Channel 4 we find that they are both showing a scratchy
- black+white film. So it's on with the satellite receiver and.........
- oh... a game show.... even worse, it's one of those American game-shows
- where the contestants get over excited when they win an unbelievably
- small amount of money. It goes something like this :-
-
- Host (Bob) - Okay Wilma, answer this correctly to win another $5. What
- is the capital of France ?
-
- Contestant (Wilma) - Erm...... That's a hard one...... Can you give me
- a clue Bob ?
-
- Host (Bob) - No, not really... You've got 5 seconds left...take a
- guess.
-
- Contestant (Wilma) - Is it Paris, Bob ?
-
- Host (Bob) - I'm sorry.......but................. YOU'RE CORRECT !
-
- Contestant (Wilma) - WWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH !!!!
-
- At this point Wilma hugs the other contestants while the "canned"
- clapping is badly edited in. Wilma jumps around a bit more......then
- the (invisible) audience suddenly stop clapping as the "pause" button
- is pressed on the tape-player. A strange set-up of light-bulbs shows
- her prize total... an amazing $15....... how sad their lives must be....
- @5
- The game show finishes and you notice that it was recorded in 1982.
- You'd wondered why they had strange clothing. All the Sports channels
- are showing either Snooker, Tennis or something else that happened
- years ago. CNN is showing....news. And so is Sky News. UK Gold is
- showing a 6 year-old episode of Neighbours (oh dear!) The Childrens
- Channel is showing an old kids programme. MTV is about the only
- half-decent channel which is showing.... music videos. The German
- channels (which seem to be taking over the Astra satellite !) are
- showing yet more crap dubbed-over films from America and Britain.
- Actually, it's quite funny watching the A-Team in German !! The rest
- of the channels are scrambled....
-
- Cable isn't much better... Asia Vision isn't exactly entertaining,
- while Discovery is showing the same programme for the millionth time,
- as are most of the other cable stations. It's surprising that the
- fibre-optic cable is capable of transmitting billions of different
- channels to your home, yet only a few are actually operating because
- they don't have enough money to do anything.
-
- Well, there we go.... Why bother watching the never-ending load
- of Australian imports and other crap TV when you can load ZAM on your
- Amiga ?!
-
- Gears 1993
-
- FootNote - Actually, satellite isn't that bad now ! Read the Truth
- About Satellite TV.
-