Tele-woes

When your parents told you TV can make you mad, they were not bluffing, or scaring you. Read on (at your own risk) to find out how...

Imagine you are working for a whole weekend on a project, and solving the deep questions of Life like “why doesn't a list containing .toLowercase()d words recognize a uppercase character?” or “Why oh why doesn't 'maltose' start with 'malto'?” (or at least why does my program says so). After two whole days of intense soul-searching err.. code-searching, you are ready to hit the TV.

Now “Rome” is a series worth watching if you can look past the PG-24+ rendition of violence and that other thing ancient Rome was famous for (the things those hills saw before the Vatican stepped in, I tell you...), and not eat you heart out for small historical inaccuracies (I mean, nobody who is supposed to live is dead, and nobody got a new lease of life that I can think of), it's a nice show to watch. So, you get ready to watch some “action” (in all senses of the word), and what you see? The show has been canceled for a week because of some Awards show or other.

But you rally from the shock, saying that you can live without the show for a week, and that you will have endless re-viewings of “Studio 60” and “The Office” to keep you sated for a week. And what do you hear next?

Now, I have said it before many times, but “Studio 60” is (I cannot say 'was” *sniff*) a show worth watching. I mean, look at this... a clear successor to “Sports Night”, a show from Aaron Sorkin (get your hands on any episode of “Sports Night” or “West Wing” and you will see what I mean), starring (for a start) Matthew Perry (for those for whom “Friends” is not a reason enough, watch the whole 19 yards – 9 and 10, I mean, and the 3 episodes of West Wing) and Bradley Whitford (again, refer “West Wing”). The pedigree is enough to raise the expectations of any discerning viewer, and the show didn't disappoint. So, when you hear that the show had to be cancelled even before it finished one season for lack of viewers, you wonder what people are watching here.

At this point, I would like to issue an warning: keep away from “The Office” you people at whoever-decided-these-kind-of-things... All in all, some idiots are making an idiot out of idiot-box.

On home front, I am happy TGILC is going nice. The “Mahayudh” concept was nice, and the champions are really a talented and quality bunch. But the “Comedy Champions” show somehow didn't click for me. And then I watched a show which was supposed to make me laugh, and didn't crack even a smile in 20-odd minutes. That means, it is bad.

So, the only things remaining for me are reruns and sequels. There, I hit gold (literally given that “old is...” concept). So, good news here: “Byomkesh Bakshi” is back on the air. And “Karamchand” back for a second innings. Of course, given that the carrots are supposedly pricey now, the fact I haven't seen him munching one yet is not so surprising.

And at the end, I would like to make a confession: I like to watch a soap opera. This is a show with a typical family in true tradition of saas-bahu serials, where the matriarch of the family rules with an iron hand. They are rich enough that the elder son is able to take his wife to Switzerland and buy her a diamond necklace for their first anniversary, and the younger son gives one of his acquint. Rs. 2 lakh as a loan without second thoughts. Even their servent is treated as one of the family. There is love abound in the family (the couples even have rhyming names for each other like Sonu-Somu), and drama enough. There is also sad moments when there are “affairs” of heart involved. But at the end of the day, they always get together to defeat the people who hurt the family (these include a builder-cum-bhai, a competitor and a scheming share-dalal).

Now before you start judging me, let me tell you that the show is Shekhar Suman-starrer Divan khandan ki kahani “Dekh Bhai Dekh”. Dekh one episode bhai and you will never dekh any other soap opera. Comedy at its best this is...


The Great Eagle has spoken...

Quote of The Day:
Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
- Clive Barnes