Sort of like the previous post: I never watch TV while eating but this summer got in the habit of Seinfeld at dinnertime. However it was just replaced in that slot by Everybody Loves Raymond and since the alternatives are limited due to my reliance on actual broadcast and much worse (local news and a couple of bottom-feeder "comedies") I've watched that a couple of days which is probably all the human mind can take. It's bluntly obvious, a by-the-books sitcom with little imagination or charm. Aren't consolidated production and capitalist competition supposed to result in acceptable quality and greater choice? Not that Seinfeld is exactly the landmark usually claimed: People who says it's a "show about nothing" have clearly not seen it, merely sat in front of the TV. But at least its twists on sitcom formulas are in fact twists and often fairly inventive; that it never abandoned or even twisted very far the formulas is why it maintained popularity. At any rate, I caught the first ten minutes of something called Quintuplets starring Andy Richter that I honestly thought was some skit show's parody of a sitcom. Y'know, the "whacky" premise, stock characters like the befuddled dad, completely unfunny punchlines accompanied by startlingly loud laugh tracks, continual business. Too bad it appears to be real.
Why does this justify my lack of cable? Because even though it multiplies choices I'd still end up deciding among junk, garbage and trash. Guess it's back to those Merbow discs at supper....