TV Tales

Old television shows on DVD are a wonderful thing. Some are not worth watching, but then, you don't have to buy those. I've been very distracted over the past two days because I just got Futurama: Season 2 in the mail on Tuesday. I'm about halfway through the season already and then I'll have to watch them all again because all the episodes have commentary that is often interesting and as funny as the actual episode.

Between the two of us, my fiancee and I now have all the issued collections of The Simpsons, Futurama, Friends, West Wing, and Family Guy. I also have about 20 episodes of The Twilight Zone and if the prices ever come down, I would like to get The X-Files.

One thing that I suppose is a bit sad about all this is that more and more people are turning to watch old episodes of a show rather than watching anything new on. For the most part, its because what's on just isn't up the standard of those classic shows. Even good shows are declining in value. Watching season 4 or 5 of Friends can often be much funnier, even when you can quote the jokes, than most of the new episodes of the same show.

Then you have the problem that the quality of what is funny has just gone downhill as well. The current champion of comedy is "Everybody Loves Raymond," a show that has serious comedic flaws in my opinion. Raymond comes off as a jerk who knows nothing except how to complain about his wife and beg for sex now and again. At least Al Bundy could have a good comic one-on-one with Peg. Both would get good sniper shots off that would leave them both wounded. The delivery in that show was also better in my opinion. Ray's wife just comes across as an oppressive, nagging bitch who takes no joy in anything. Ray's parents are the redeeming factors, but they really are just one trick ponies. Once you've seen one episode, you've seen all their material. And yet this show is proclaimed to be in the same league as "Cheers" or "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Have we really lowered our expectations this much?

There are still a few good shows but they always seemed to be either dwarfed by something else or the network is too stupid to know how to use it. Take ABC. They have a good concept reality show: "The Mole." Its a little more intellectual and interactive than others. Yet after two seasons, ABC tossed it aside and is only using it for fodder trying to get B-grade celebrities to make minorly funny comments from time to time. Another one is "The Amazing Race" on CBS. Despite good ratings last summer, CBS thought about killing the show until it grabbed the Emmy for Best Reality Show.

I suppose a point will come where we decide that there is nothing good is being made anymore and we just watch our DVDs with an occasional release to watch sports or the talking heads on some news show. At least we now have those DVDs.