I have to admit, I've never been big on watching Television. As a kid, I wandered quickly away from the tube, getting very bored of what my parents considered safe-for-children TV, which generally meant afternoon sitcoms (although there were some notable exceptions and I grudgingly admit to recognizing nearly every episode of Three's Company). As an adult, I'm not much different, I have little tolerance for throw-away entertainment. I like my story-telling to feel as if it's going somewhere, which means I prefer a serial that progresses rather than melodramatic soaps or one-shot episodes that can be watched in any order. The story doesn't have to be linear, but characters should grow and conclusions are nice.

Television caters to the short-attention span people. Television wants impulsive shoppers and hands-on-the-remote zombies.

Sure, that sounds like a cliché, but I don't feel that most people fit into that boob tube fixated crowd. Maybe they did once, but they've moved on. New mediums have been invented and old ones made anew. They can't keep pushing television like a drug, they can't just assume that millions of people are automatically glued to their sets, they can't spoon feed their lazy-assed content forever. If Television doesn't shape up, it will just die. Not with a bang, but it will slowly blend into other mediums. People are already making their own choices about what to watch and when to watch it. "Primetime" is fading while we plug in our Tivos, buy DVDs or download content to our PCs. Some sitcoms are not even ending up on TV at all.

The technology has surpassed the unreliable VCR and we're using it. The media companies complain that we can conveniently make near-perfect copies and it's ruining their business, but they're wrong: it's ruining the way they do business. They have to change to keep up with the times. We still want visual entertainment, but now we're challenging them to give it to us on our schedules. And it can no longer suck.

So where did this rant come from? I do watch occasional TV shows that I find interesting: Oz and the first season of 24 are good examples. This year, it's Lost. I was enjoying the first batch of episodes, but then I noticed it started to fall into an episodic pattern, much to my disdain, then the reruns hit and my frustration at the nature of Television jumped right up front and center. I realized that I'm a valid member of their audience and they can't pull me too and fro based on their perception of the necessity of "sweeps week", etc.. From this point on, I'll be prepared to purchase Lost on DVD and in the absence of that availability, I will download it. I refuse to slave my entertainments to an antiquated medium.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm headed out to buy the first season DVD set of The Bob Newhart Show.