What TV would you outlaw, if you could?

[Archae]

For me, "reality TV" shows.

[Gatchaman]

1. Dog the Bounty Hunter

those assholes who make custom motorcycles, that guy on CNBC who jumps up and down and shouts about the stock market, Glen Beck on Headline News.

That's a goos start, anyhow.

[NewWaveChick1981]

2. I second the reality tv motion!

Freakin' HATE so-called reality shows!!!! :grr: Yeah, somebody's idea of contrived, quasi-reality---carefully scripted, of course.... :mad:

I'd also outlaw the Fox News Channel. :P

[Initech]

3. Fox News

[Catch22Dem]

4. Funny you should mention reality

I was just commenting that "The Deadliest Catch" has become one of my favorite shows. It's reality TV, but it's more like a documentary, so I hope you let me keep it. ;)

[NewWaveChick1981]

6. Deadliest Catch is documentary tv, not Temptation Island or

Survivor or Average Joe or BS like that. :) Deadliest Catch is NOT in the same category! :D

[tjwmason]

5. Too damn right - "reality" shows.

They're completely artificial constructs, generally designed to cause pointless conflicts in the interests of "entertainment".

[LeftyMom]

7. Labor and Delivery shows

Birth Day, Special Delivery, etc. They're almost always awfully medicalized interventive births where the care givers run things and the laboring mother is very passive so it's no fucking surprise that a great many of them end in a c-section. It seems irresponsible to me to promote that sort of thing as normal, we already have very fucked up ideas about birth in this society. Oh, and many of the babies are shown being bottle-fed at the end too, which is fucking apalling.

I can't watch those stupid shows. They raise my blood pressure more than Bush speaches, CCF talking points and being stuck behind some asshole in a Hummer on the freeway put together.

[BlueIris]

8. Ah, SO glad someone beat me to it.

My reason for wanting shit like "A Baby Story" in particular off the air is that for those of us who hate to see people in dysfunctional marriages and relationships creating children to "fill the void," or take their mind of their hideous problems or whatever get so. damn. depressed. watching the couples have their babies, (while the obvious stress between them bleeds allll over the screen during the lead up to and during the L&D process) and "happily" take them home...to a lifetime of assured misery. Taking away "A Baby Story" would probably save many people from Prozac. The only reason I can think to keep that crap around is so viewers (well, the ones watching with their brains on, anyway) can see the difference between the way couples with decent health coverage are treated by the health care system versus the way couples without it are handled--and be horrified. And frankly, from what I've seen on that terrible show, even the couples who were obviously selected for the series because they've secured the increasingly-rare private, traditional indemnity plans still have to put up with a fat pile of disturbing, misogynist bullshit from...everyone, even in allegedly enlightened "birthing centers." Well, except in the hospitals in which the staff obviously knows it's going to wind up on The Learning Channel and wants to make a big show of how "modern" and dare I say it, "progressive" they are about helping the women have the babies, which--for those of us who've worked in health care, we know that the second they're off to their next patient, who doesn't have a full camera crew scrutinizing her environment, it's back to their normal, callous, and usually deeply misogynist routine. So, in some sense, evil crap like "A Baby Story" does serve sort of a positive purpose. Every time I even think about having a kid someday, I flash back to some random scene in which a whiny, disinterested OB speaks condescendingly to a woman trying to deliver her child and just--shudder. Cats for me, I think. And a future in which "A Baby Story" is only shown at 2 a.m. With extra commercials.

[gollygee]

13. Oh yeah, those too!

A mom who wants the baby to room in or wants to even try delivering without an epidural is a freak.

And when they "save the mom's life" or "save the baby's life" by rushing them to a c-section when it seems like potentially the life could have been put in danger by all the interventions, it makes me fume.

[wildhorses]

9. reality shows SUCK

thanks for letting me get that out in a safe environment

[KamaAina]

10. pResidential press conferences

but "Dumbya's Law" would sunset on 1/20/09, or the day after impeachment.

[gollygee]

11. American Hotrod

Boyd whateverhisname is is a royal jerk.

My husband watches that show. I hate hate hate it because I find the guy in it to be very abrasive.

[YankeyMCC]

12. Huckster TV

John Edwards, 700 Club, Physic Friends that sort of thing.

Anything where the host(s) are essentially trying to pull a con to separate vulnerable people from their money. (I mean more than your average TV commercial)

[giant_robot]

14. All David Blaine specials

I don't actually dislike him enough to hope he actually drowns during a stunt or anything, I'm just saying stay the hell off TV and we're cool.