Post-Teen Angst: The Brain, Located Here

Television
--or--
``Those British comedies really fuck me over, man.''

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Television is a many-splendoured thing, is it not, dear Average Reader? It can baby-sit, spoon-feed, annoy, agitate, bore, confuse, or even entertain you. Great stuff, iddnit?

But the way people interact with television is moderately frightening. Some folks get downright nasty if you dare to interrupt their favourite show with a phone call. Or shush you if you dare speak while the sacred box is on. Or draw moustaches on the supermodels in the makeup commercials. (Ooooops. That one's mine.)

Point being, this medium should not be the ultimate in one's life. So you miss fifteen minutes of ``Friends'' to talk with your dottering Auntie Bertha. Big deal. So you get interrupted in your recitation of Star Trek by a conversation. Who cares? Really. Catch it in re-runs. Don't live your life for TV.

Except for maybe ``Columbo''. Or ``Squawk Box''. Or ``Funky Squad''. Aaaaaaghghgh!!! I've got it, too! Nooooooooooo!!! Okay. So I admit that I enjoy some programs. Fine. But there's not enough good ones out there.

We need more stuff of the calibre of the first season of ``Mighty Morphin Power Rangers''. Pure cheese. Formulaic to a tee. Giant robot battling giant monster. Good guys win. Bad guys get away to cause havoc next week.

I submit to you that TV is mostly tapioca. I am strong enough to admit this, and see television cheese as an art form. Join me, my children. Flip from channel to channel, late at night. Watch ``Lost in Space'' during the commercials in ``Funky Squad''.

Search out the cheese. Join me in the quest to find the cheesy TV utopia. It may be an amalgam of ``Chips'', ``The A-Team'' and the third season of ``Star Trek''. It may merely be a sit-com on FOX. Who knows?

What am I really saying here? I don't know. TV is evil. Succumb to it with your eyes closed and you are as good as dead. Embrace it with a cynic's eye, and you may yet survive.

Wah. This is just waaay too deep. Think I'll go and catch the last few minutes of ``Dr. Quinn'' and let my brain ooze out my toes.

Ian ``Son of God Complex'' Milligan

© 1996 mathNEWS