Jack. Van. Impe. Presents.
I alternate between loving that show because of its insanity, being concerned since it's probably influencing people, and being depressed because those two mouth breathing robots probably make more money than I ever will. The wife in particular, Rexella... even the name is ridiculous. Do you get the impression that if you engaged her in a debate and made enough rational arguments that challenged her worldview, she might suddenly start screaming nonstop and stab you in the face? Usually I watch it because it's on late at night and I'm too lazy to get up from the comp and change it.
SHOWS I DISLIKE:
- Family Guy. I don't know why this is so popular... it seems like there's a backlash against it now, but even when my friends all loved it, I wasn't a big fan. The constant flashbacks and "let's see how random we can be" humor, and the "if it's offensive it's inherently funny" 4chan-esque teen humor. Ok, I admit that's sometimes true for me, but Family Guy can really test its limits from what I remember.
- South Park. Sometimes it's funny and intelligent, but the not-quite-right libertarian proselytizing can be annoying. Usually seems to involve taking a strawman argument or some politically correct argument made occasionally by particularly crazy people, equating it with the left in general, defeating it, then assuming that taking a middle-of-the-road position is automatically right because it's in the middle. Of course they bash the political right as well, but in those cases they're usually on the mark. (Yes, I'm totally unbiased!)
- King of the Hill. Ok, I'm usually indifferent to this show, but they do the same "middle of the road is automatically right!" stuff I mentioned with South Park. I remember one show where Bobby organized a school protest against unhealthy foods, and OF COURSE over time it degenerated into an out of control kid-riot in the town. Just awkward and ham-fisted in general.
- CSI / Crime shows. I usually can't stand most of these shows. I'm not that interested in the crime shows to begin with, but some of them tend to be moralizing and obnoxious. The cops are always heavy-handed and holier-than-thou, and their interrogation tactic seems to be accusing each suspect of being guilty repeatedly, then ignoring them when the cops turn out to be wrong. Of course even if the suspects aren't guilty, usually they've done SOMETHING wrong, because there's no a person could be involved with the police unless they were bad.
Some of shows have really painful plots... I remember one plot about swingers culture that was of course making a heavy-handed statement against it, with cops subtly rolling their eyes at the dumb swingers being interviewed. Another show was talking about some MMORPG, and they were talking to a kid who had witnessed someone falling off a building, and the kid goes "man, I've never seen anyone killed before... at least, NOT IN REAL LIFE (emphasize not mine!)" There were several other weird "gamers are amoral" references as well.
Oh god, and CSI: Miami. I love that all the cops also seem to be metrosexuals or supermodels. The female cops, of course, go about doing their detective work in anything that will allow their breasts to collect evidence from the ground when they lean over. You know it's bad when a crime show makes you hope, every show you see, that the criminals will murder the "good" guys and get away with their crimes.
- House. I actually kinda like this show but it's one of those internet-nerd fanboy shows that gets kind of overhyped. Basically the draw of the show is that there's a fairly amusing, unusual TV character who's personality probably more closely represents the average internet geek than that of anyone else on TV. Other than that it's a fairly repetitive hospital show.
- Lost. First season was good, then there's been what, 2/3 more seasons, and we know pretty much nothing new at all? They'd made an art out of "characters not answering each others questions and playing dramatic music when nothing has been revealed in order to create the illusion of forward momentum". It's too bad because I like some of the characters but it's just too frustrating.
SHOWS I LIKE:
- Joss Whedon Shows (internet fanboy stuff, but NOT overhyped!)
- The Office (great mix of intelligent humor, not-intelligent humor, likeable characters, and drama)
- Arrested Development
- Friends (I just had to put this on here because I think it gets unfairly treated by internet people. It's not groundbreaking humor or anything, but I thought most of the time it was genuinely funny, maybe in more of an 'enjoyable' way than a 'laugh out loud' way).