We can has innovation?

I watched a little bit of "network" television (as in, ABC, CBS, NBC) last night. (I guess it was that I was watching "Finding Nemo" - that was why).

And you know? I'm glad I have cable. Because if I didn't, I would be shooting my television very soon. (And I don't currently own a gun.)

It seems as if every show that's being promoted (either for this summer or for the coming fall) fits into one of two categories:

1. Self-help for sad sacks
2. Joe or Jane Public going on television, with a very high probability of being humiliated, and a very low probability of becoming a star.

Television. Dear television. I do not want to watch shows in either of these categories. And even if I did, I do not need five or six iterations of each.

I used to look for network television for two (well, really three) things:

1. Funny comedies
2. Interesting dramas
(and 3. Local news.)

However, with the exception of some of the stuff NBC's done recently, there's no more of 1. And as for 2., it seems they've largely been wiped from the landscape thanks to the reality television craze.

(And yes, I know: "reality" television is cheap to make. You don't need to pay writers or actors. All you need is a bunch of willing loonies who want their fifteen minutes of fame, and someone who's good at editing the resulting hours of boredom creatively enough to make the show look dramatic.)

But, let me comment on each of these new trends.

First, the self-help shows. I guess we should have seen this coming, what with "What Not To Wear" and all of those de-cluttering shows on cable. (In the spirit of full disclosure: I have never watched "What Not To Wear." I just find that kind of thing squirmingly uncomfortable: "Now, Lois, we know you love to wear flats and you have a congenital knee problem. But flats are out, out, out, and they make your legs look fat. Try on these 2" heels. Oh, you'll get used to your toes being compressed into an inch-wide area in a few weeks. But be sure to wear the shoes everywhere so you learn how to walk in them!" And yes, I know, people go on that show voluntarily. But I don't like to think of these two arbiters-of-taste taking a person and going "Everything that sets you apart from the pullulating mass of humanity, you must change now, and dress as we dictate." I know that I sometimes err on the side of dowdiness in my dress, but I wouldn't want some chick and some dude I'd never met before, who don't know my life or my lifestyle, telling me what to wear).

Anyway. They're apparently carrying forward the trend of nanny shows on the networks - where they find some family that will look like a junior version of the Jerry Springer show on film (even better if they can get some random shot of the dad saying either "I didn't know it was this bad" or "I don't think it's such a problem") and then truck in some soi-disant child-rearing expert to whip the family back into shape (And these are the kind of shows for which 'creative editing' was made).

And they've got some show where Shaquille O'Neill bullyrags little fat kids into losing weight. Charming. Fat kids and an inarticulate NBA star.

And I saw one advertised recently - this wasn't on a network, it was on A and E - about some kind of relationship guru who tells people how they must change themselves (hint: everything) in order to find love, so they won't die sad and alone. Look: I don't have a problem with suggesting to someone with poor table manners that they develop the habit of sitting up straight, using a fork, and chewing with their mouth closed. But from what I saw in the adverts, it seemed much more on the order of telling a single woman to take her cats to the shelter because no man will ever love a woman who has cats. Things like that.

(And that actually gets to the heart of what I hate so about dating: "Don't show your true self lest you scare the person away!" Yes, but if it gets serious - and I, silly me, thought the goal of dating was, you know, a long-term relationship, like maybe getting married - when do you slowly sneak back those bits of your "true self"? And what does it say about our society if a person (and I'm not talking about a circus freak here; I'm talking about a fairly normal person) is told that many of the aspects of their personality are unacceptable and must be covered up in the interest of tricking their potential significant other?)

Okay. So - networks, my conclusion on "Self help for sad sacks"?

Do. Not. Want.

Look, if you're doing it for Springer reasons - so people around the country will look at these people and go, "Thank God I'm not that person," shame on you. If you're doing it because in some twisted universe you think it might actually HELP people, you're mistaken - watching little fat kids being made to do pushups isn't going to encourage people to get off their duffs and start an exercise program.

The second category - and actually, in a way, it overlaps with the first - is People Humiliating Themselves on Television.

I blame American Idol.

And I don't blame the millions of people who watch American Idol, but I do blame the low-creativity network execs who see something successful, and then order fifteen clones of it to populate the airwaves in the coming season.

Flipping around, I saw a few moments of some show - there was a guy who looked like Liberace reincarnated playing a peppy rendition of "New York, New York" on a white piano (he even had a candleabra - now that's going a bit far). And then three people evaluated him. The only one I recognized was Sharon Osbourne. And I said to myself: damn, this is just a clone of American Idol - there are people who are marginally talented up on stage, there's a snarky British guy, there's a woman who says nice things, and then there's a third guy. (Thankfully, I didn't hear the third guy use the epithet "dawg." But maybe I didn't watch long enough).

And there's apparently a show where people think they look like celebrities, so they try to sing/dance/stand around and look rich (And that, I've finally decided, is Paramis Hilamaton's "talent") like them.

And there's another one with inventors trying to promote their wacky inventions.

Look: I don't want to watch a sixteen-year-old from Cowflop, Arkansas, who thinks that the fact that she looks a little bit like Jewel (with the right makeup and in bad light) means she is entitled to fame and fortune.

And I don't want to watch some gamer who lives in his parents' basement talk about this 'great new' invention he's come up with that will do away with the need for taking bathroom breaks on long car trips.

Again: Do Not Want.

And you know? With all the faux talent shows on the air, I'm coming to wonder if this is maybe the legacy of the self-esteem movement in the schools - where little Johnny and little Janey are told that everything they ever do is great and good and wonderful, and so, ten or twelve years down the line, Johnny or Janie hop a bus for Hollywood, figuring they're so GREAT, that they can't help but become rich and famous.

And 90% of them just aren't that good. And a few of them are hideous enough that you cringe (or at least I do) to see them on television, and you ask yourself (or at least I do): don't these people have any friends? Didn't they have anyone telling them, "You know...you might want to rethink that career as a singer."

When I was in high school, I used to play the clarinet. Now, I had no illusions of ever joining the New York Philharmonic or anything like that. I knew I wasn't that good. But my orchestra teacher reinforced that; he once made a comment like, "Unless you practice twice as long in a day, and give up doing some of the things you are doing now so you have more time to practice, don't waste your time and mine; you will never be good enough to perform in public."

And you know, after that year, I put the clarinet away and never took it out again? For the longest time I thought my orchestra teacher was being unnecessarily cruel (and maybe he was to me), but if by saying to people "You will never be good enough for a large orchestra," he may have prevented the creation of more Johnnies and Janies running off to Hollywood to share their "talent" with a television audience that is more eager to laugh at them than to support them.

I don't know. I know reality shows are cheap to make, and lots of people seem to eat them up - but they just make me sad. I don't want to watch someone with a problem be cajoled into "getting over" that problem (just in time for the exciting season finale!). I don't want to watch people who really can't sing, or dance, or do much of anything it seems get up in front of a panel of judges and perform.

I want my funny comedies and interesting dramas.

And I want shows like Dirty Jobs - which, I realize, is a reality-show even though I say I hate reality-shows. But the reason I like it is this: when something humiliating happens to Mike Rowe, he bears it with generally good humor. He doesn't cry, or get angry and stomp off, or say "No one ever told me!" No, he kind of mugs at the camera and grits his teeth and goes on, and later, in the "blooper roll" they sometimes show at credits time, he says something funny about it. And besides - he makes a fair amount of money doing what he does. Not like Miss Jewel Wouldbe from Cowflop, AR - where she's competing for maybe a slim shot at a few thousand dollars.

I'll be glad when the reality show trend dies, though I have to admit a bit of apprehension about what it may be replaced by.