You can see anything you might ever want to see on TV. Tremendous stuff. That wasn’t always the case.
In fact, there was a time, children, when houses were barely big enough to keep a nuclear family of four penned in. Darkness was on the face of the living room and there was nothing but tiny furniture and a singularity and then suddenly BANG there was a gigantic box squatting in the corner. There would be a little screen in the middle like a bloop of jelly on a big Danish and everyone would crowd around it like it was a campfire, with the littlest kid right up front at eye-ruining distance to change the channels and wiggle the rabbit-ears on request.
Ed Sullivan and Groucho Marx lived in the box, but It was early in the TV universe and there was only one real star that faded out every night. There were some good shows and a whole lot of bad shows but we all thought things were going to brighten up considerably when cable TV came in.
The way I remember it, we would go from three stodgy broadcast channels with cigarette ads to ten thousand channels and no commercials. I don’t know what happened. There were gobs of ads. Everyone was so surprised. And the Marlboro man was gone but suddenly there was no end of drugs you should ask your doctor about in case they were right for you. AND, there were only about sixty channels and 58 of them were total crap: My Mother The Car marathons and such. It was all a terrible disappointment but most people didn’t mention it because they had so much invested in cable TV being awesome. Nobody wants to be played for a fool.
Now, though, one way or another, there really is a lot of cool stuff on TV. All sorts of outfits will funnel you truly good movies and well-written series. Not for free though. And Dave and I don’t get to see any of it. Somewhere along the line our internet company quit sending us what we were used to and offered us Directv instead. It cost $141 a month and yes, $141 isn’t as much money as it used to be, but it’s way too much for NCIS reruns and Family Feud. Although, that Steve Harvey! He’s a hoot! He ain’t a $141 hoot though.
I was aware that this isn’t how most people watch TV anymore. Instead they have weird little interventionist devices that suck good content out of space and onto your screen. There are five hundred different streaming services, and, as in all cases involving excessive choice, I simply did not know what to do.
The Daves!
So we bumbled along with our expensive crappy service plus Netflix, and then our TV, which is by far the largest TV we’ve ever owned and was given to us by our nephew when he got a bigger one, quit getting Netflix. Netflix warned us. “Your device will no longer support us two weeks from now,” it said, like our TV was a deadbeat dad or something, and so I canceled my subscription, although I was then two days into the next payment cycle, so I still had Ghost Netflix for another month. Plus NCIS reruns and Family Feud.
For $157. It was not ideal. We needed help. We needed Ted Lasso, according to everybody in the world. We needed the Daves.
To be continued.
Ted Lasso is worth every penny and every moment, and I do not recommend tv shows often. Or almost ever.
I only have another three or four left to see and already I’m repeating them to make it last. What a great show.
Another vote for Ted Lasso! As a picketer’s sign said during the PREVIOUS writers’ strike, “Honk if you appreciate character development!”
I anxiously await part 2! One nice thing about living in the city, I get 68 cable-like channels over the air for free, hi-def and everything. My sister who lives in the sticks also pays $140 monthly for Direct. I can’t imagine paying that! I am paying $200 a year total for Paramount Plus with Showtime, and HBO Max but both are commercial free streaming services and the only thing I watch over the air now is the local news. PS The reboot of Frasier sucks and has left me pretty much devastated, but Season 2 of Julia starts on Nov 16, and she will save me. 🥰
Is Niles in the reboot?
No, but he IS in the Julia Child series on Max which is infinitely more watchable. 🙂
PS. That’s a cute photo of you and your dad I’m guessing, but I recognized you right away! That was way back when people lived in black and white. 🥸
‘At’s my dad. I absolutely do not remember the TV ever being on when I was that age, and thought we didn’t even get a set until I was six or so. And that it was bigger. It’s funny how our memories work.
Ted Lasso is good for the soul. We only have it cause we get Apple TV free for a year with our new cell phone provider (T-Mobile). We cut the cable cord years ago and rotate through streaming services one at a time, in rotation.
I keep reading that Ted Lasso is a good show. But is it FUNNY? I’ve never watched, but from what I’ve read, he’s a relentlessly positive person. Doesn’t sound funny to me. But I consider sarcasm high humor, and like my humor edgy.
I remember finding Ellie Kemper funny as a minor character in The Office. (She was a relentlessly positive character as well.) She got her own show: The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. On the basis of her being funny in The Office, I watched a couple episodes. What works well in a minor character in an ensemble cast does not translate well to a main character (at least in my opinion.) Paul and i looked at each other and gave the thumbs down sign and watched something else.
His relentless positivity IS funny, and so is much else on that show.
That’s a good idea, to run through all the shows in one streaming service and then cancel it and go to another. Hmm. Yes, Ted Lasso is funny. And will also make you cry, and cheer. It is wonderful.
On Apple TV I’d also recommend “Lessons in Chemistry,” which is by turns infuriating, tragic and funny. So far. The last episode we watched had me in tears twice, but I laughed a lot too. (Not that tears are my goal — I quit watching Grey’s Anatomy after the first two episodes left me crying.)
Oof. I’m in that minority that really didn’t like the book. The series isn’t doing anything for me either. I did like Six-Thirty but that’s it.
The scenes in which she was being smashed down by the patriarchal smuggery (no, there’s no such word) gave me a feeling similar to what I’d get watching a horror movie.
I had cable until a random power surge fried my TV and my cable box in a single exciting blue flash the week after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Figured I spent too much time in front of the TV, so never replaced it.
My parents gave me their old big flatscreen years ago and I never did anything with it.
I watch movies and other things on Prime via my phone.
You must have better eyes than I do. How does one even SEE anything on the small screen of a phone? We generally watch YouTube on our Macs. But we DO have a flatscreen TV for streaming stuff we want to embiggen from Netflix.
Incidentally, Murr — we also got that message from Netflix a while back. So we gave the old flatscreen to Paul’s aunt Marie (who had poor vision, but LOVED watching the Phillies. She was elated.) We bought a slightly larger one that supported Netflix. We are reluctant to adopt newer things in the tech field. We only got a newer TV and newer flip phones because our old ones wouldn’t be working with the new systems.
I would not miss the TV much if mine blew up, but there is a lot of great stuff out there now and I don’t mind winding down my evenings with it. And yeah, I do not love having to replace my devices, but it’s never because they break down–the software just doesn’t support them anymore. I suspect my laptop is due for a replacement soon. There Are Signs.
When Paul and I first got together, we had cable. We switched to Direct TV when Comcast kept nickle and diming us every month. But then, Paul started working nights as a bartender, and we realized that the ONLY show we were watching was The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Everything else, we could get online. So we cut the cable way back then and save a lot of money. Most of the things we watch are the late night comedians with their shows (Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, Bill Maher.) We can catch these on YouTube if we’re patient enough to wait until the next day. And we are. We do have Peacock for Colbert and SNL, and Netflix for some things we watch. We had Disney+ for exactly one month, so that we could watch Hamilton. But we really don’t watch much TV, per se. Even the late night hosts, we generally just see the monologues and A Closer Look with Meyers, and Meanwhile with Colbert. Hardly ever stay for the interviews, unless it’s someone we really like, and NEVER the musical guests. We pick and choose. There is so much else that I have to do in the evening: read blogs that I like, e-mail friends back and forth, read, and… sleep! I am an early to rise, early to bed person, and Paul works nights, so he stays up late to unwind. We watch “our shows” at different times, unless it’s one of his nights off. But even if we watch them apart, we talk about them at breakfast: “Hey, did you see that Kimmel tic-toc video at the top of the show?” “Oh, god, yeah! That was hysterical!” It sure as hell beats talking about the news.
I HOPE that in Part 2 we learn that “the Dave’s” put a $98 antenna on your roof and now your Portland stations are all free!?
Oh golly Jeanette, I’m so sorry.
I’ve had some issues the past couple weeks, been away visiting the environs of OHSU, to sort them out.
I read your entertaining piece, Murr, and am surprised that, so far, your commenters have only focused on the last sentence. I wish, no i don’t, that I know who ‘Ted Lasso’ is, but I’ll delve no further.
It goes without saying I don’t watch TV, in any of it’s ite
72rations. I do stream stuff, however, and that pretty makes up for what goes on in ‘mainstream’ tv, I think.
I first watched it in I’d guess ’55 or so, in Bend. A neighbor had it, and I went over Saturdays to watch cartoons.
We, Cary and I, got our first B&W tv in 72 to watch the Olympics. We know how that turned out…
I’ve never been a tv watcher, but now I do spend evening watching things streaming, on my laptop. My flattop TV, furnished by my son, sit’s black in front of me. I should find the remote for it, I suppose…I saw it last summer somewhere.
Cheers
Mike
72
You’re doing the same things everyone else is doing, Mike, only on a different device. I hope you get your issues sorted out and I’m keeping my magic fingers crossed for you.
I spent the first 9 years of my life (late-40’s–mid-50’s) in early post-war Europe, so I guess I missed becoming infected by TV compulsion. The downside is that I really don’t understand why people care what’s on or has been on TV. I’ve never seen a single episode of Seinfeld (except clips on you-tube), so that tunes me out of many conversations. I do appreciate being able to stream movies.
We did have a TV but it didn’t get to come out and play much. And there were shows I was not allowed to watch. Like “Mission Impossible.” All my friends would talk about those episodes the next day. My father Did Not Approve of a show celebrating some entity like the CIA interfering in other countries’ business. Or something. I never saw the show so I don’t know if he had a point.
As far as I know, our TV only got Huntley-Brinkley, Ed Sullivan and the Dick Van Dyke Show.
I did not have a TV for the entire decade of the ’70s and I don’t know what I missed.
Um, Nixon resigned, a actor who starred with a chimp played president in a weird reality show and Viet Nam kicked our ass’s out. There, you’re all caught up.
We lived in the bush where we were delighted if the wind was in the right direction and we could get ~~~~~ radio~~~~~~ (that’s us doing quavers of excitement). There was the one gummint channel which everyone in Canader is supposed to be able to get but if you’re in a deep enough valley it’s iffy. But TV? Not a chance. Our boys grew up without it. Learned how to read, think, write, build things. Ours is on about 3-4 hours a week, all PBS. PBS has great programming and apart from pledge drives there are no ads.
But…but…how will you know what to ask the doctor about whether it’s right for you?
You mentioned Steve Harvey? I used to find him a hoot. Then I heard him say that if while talking with someone he learned that that person was an atheist, he would immediately turn around and walk away because such a person has “no moral compass.”
To Steve Harvey I would say this: “When children are toddlers they are taught right from wrong and they internalize those lessons. If you can’t make moral choices for any reason other than fear of being tortured eternally by the most loving being in the universe, then you have failed to internalize society’s basic moral standards. In other words, you are a case of arrested development at the toddler level.”
Then I would immediately turn and walk away, because Steve Harvey has no moral compass.
I can no longer stand to see his face on the screen.
Fair enough. I rarely quit liking someone because of misdeeds. I pick and choose the bits i like and let the rest go. I STILL miss Louis C.K.
I quit liking Cat Stevens after he told an interviewer that he approved of the fatwah against Salman Rushdie. Some things I can let go of, some not.
I realize there is nothing particularly logical about this, but for me the ability to let the rest go increases with how far in the past the bigotry was on display. For example, I love to listen to the music of the great Russian composers of the 19th Century even though they were rabid anti-Semites. But the more recent the rot, the less I am able to separate the art from the artist.
And it’s not like you can’t find better things to watch/read/listen to.
I have never paid for TV unless you count Amazon Prime. I have a digital antenna and it gives me 30 some channels, most of which ya don’t want to watch. I am contemplating Disney + for a couple of winter months to get National Geo. I do like a good book. Oh, I did see some Ted Lasso at a friend’s house. It was good.
Yesterday I found myself in a conversation with my five year old trying to explain how there was a time when you couldn’t pause or rewind a show. You just had to watch whatever was on, and most of it wasn’t worth the endless hours I spent watching it. He doesn’t really get it. Which is fair.