Un/Popular TV Opinions

[roadman65]

Don’t watch TV period.   That’s unpopular as many do, and depending on who you side with in politics, watch the different news anchors or programs, watch television.  I have found that I have no interest in TV even for other entertainment as vids on the internet or Pluto TV is my place. Heck I haven’t even watched Pluto in a while.   I guess TV lost my old age interests.

[abefroman329]

It has been happening recently. King Of The Hill is example. Just watch how wrong of directions they took in the newer episodes. Things that Hank ought to say "BWAH!!" about he no longer is in the new episodes. If they brought back King Of The Hill, it must not be Disney A.B.C., and it must not be passive.

I just finished watching the entire series for the first time a few months ago, and the last season or two was dire.  And oh, the jingoism between 2004 and 2006 (probably enforced by Mike Judge's bosses).

[Ted$8roadFan]

Some takes:

* Network TV has steadily gone downhill since 2000 and hasn't really recovered.

* Cable is better, if you're willing to pay.

* Most TV shows should be limited to 8 years. By that point, they start running out of ideas and end up recycling old ideas and become little more than a paycheck for the cast and crew.

* Between the internet (esp. YouTube) and streaming services, there is little reason to watch most TV shows live, unless you're a dedicated fan.

* It will be a sad day, and a major hit to sports TV, when Charles Barkley retires from the NBA on TNT, which is indeed the best studio show in sports.

* Most cable tv/talk shows are utterly useless. Repetitive at best, mendacious at worst.

* TV, like movies, will be reshaped by streaming. In what way, who knows.

* Lots of great TV is out there, but it's harder to get noticed.

* Remakes of older shows aren't necessarily bad, but it's not exactly a sign of health. 

[Scott5114]

And oh, the jingoism between 2004 and 2006 (probably enforced by Mike Judge's bosses).

I don't have a clear enough memory of King of the Hill to know the specific examples of which you speak, but widespread jingoism would be accurate to the setting of 2000s Texas (we certainly had it in Oklahoma, and I can't imagine it stopped at the Red, given that George W. Bush was a Texan).

[Takumi]

NASCAR on Fox > NASCAR on NBC

NASCAR on ESPN, before 2001 > the rest

CBS in the early to mid 90s for me. Ken, Ned, Neil. Neil Bonnett was the best NASCAR color commentator of all time. Ned Jarrett is 2nd. Dale Jarrett is my favorite of the modern group even though he's a studio guy mow

Some more potentially unpopular sports announcer opinions...

I don't understand why Dale Jr is so beloved in the booth aside from name recognition. I think he's much better as a host (like on his podcast or his TV show Lost Speedways). In the booth I think he's so over the top he makes Darrell Waltrip look like Wally Dallenbach.

Kurt Busch should go into the booth when he retires from driving (which sounds like it'll be soon).

Sky should replace David Croft as its F1 play-by-play commentator with Alex Jacques, who calls F1 for Channel 4 in the UK. I enjoy Alex's style better.

Gary Thorne is underrated.

[NWI_Irish96]

NASCAR on Fox > NASCAR on NBC

NASCAR on ESPN, before 2001 > the rest

CBS in the early to mid 90s for me. Ken, Ned, Neil. Neil Bonnett was the best NASCAR color commentator of all time. Ned Jarrett is 2nd. Dale Jarrett is my favorite of the modern group even though he's a studio guy mow

Some more potentially unpopular sports announcer opinions...

I don't understand why Dale Jr is so beloved in the booth aside from name recognition. I think he's much better as a host (like on his podcast or his TV show Lost Speedways). In the booth I think he's so over the top he makes Darrell Waltrip look like Wally Dallenbach.

Kurt Busch should go into the booth when he retires from driving (which sounds like it'll be soon).

Sky should replace David Croft as its F1 play-by-play commentator with Alex Jacques, who calls F1 for Channel 4 in the UK. I enjoy Alex's style better.

Gary Thorne is underrated.

I agree with you about Dale Jr. He needs to hang out with Rutledge Wood more and be in the booth less.

[In_Correct]

Here is perhaps the most unpopular King Of The Hill opinion ever:

Do Not Kill Off Lucky & Luanne.

It is very simple to recast them, even if it was live action. It has been done before even if an actor and actress died. And even if they killed them off, they would still need to hire a new actor and a new actress any ways for flashback scenes.

Sponge Bob Square Pants:

It went from being in the same league as King Of The Hill to the exact opposite in less than 100 episodes. Seasons 1 & Season 2 are mostly perfect. Season 3 & Season 4 are Hit And Miss. After that, the rest of it should be considered NON Canon.

The Most Unpopular Opinion Ever?:

Family Guy is a rip off of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, and I do not want to watch Family Guy.

Also:

Sesame Sidewalk was never that good and should have ended after 15 years. The absolute longest would be after they decided to replace "Around The Corner" with "Elmo's World".

Expanding On That Last One:

Chuck Jones is better than Jim Henson, and should have more opportunities that Jim Henson had. This is yet another reason why I do not like Disney A.B.C. who ripped off Chuck Jones and ironically owns most of The Muppets. ... And Marvel, the Animation Studio that Jim Henson utilized.

[Scott5114]

Chuck Jones is better than Jim Henson, and should have more opportunities that Jim Henson had. This is yet another reason why I do not like Disney A.B.C. who ripped off Chuck Jones and ironically owns most of The Muppets. ... And Marvel, the Animation Studio that Jim Henson utilized.

This is the first time I've ever seen someone try to pick a fight with bandit957 on this forum.

[roadman65]

Some takes:

* Network TV has steadily gone downhill since 2000 and hasn't really recovered.

* Cable is better, if you're willing to pay.

* Most TV shows should be limited to 8 years. By that point, they start running out of ideas and end up recycling old ideas and become little more than a paycheck for the cast and crew.

* Between the internet (esp. YouTube) and streaming services, there is little reason to watch most TV shows live, unless you're a dedicated fan.

* It will be a sad day, and a major hit to sports TV, when Charles Barkley retires from the NBA on TNT, which is indeed the best studio show in sports.

* Most cable tv/talk shows are utterly useless. Repetitive at best, mendacious at worst.

* TV, like movies, will be reshaped by streaming. In what way, who knows.

* Lots of great TV is out there, but it's harder to get noticed.

* Remakes of older shows aren't necessarily bad, but it's not exactly a sign of health. 

You hit the nail right on the head.

[abefroman329]

And oh, the jingoism between 2004 and 2006 (probably enforced by Mike Judge's bosses).

I don't have a clear enough memory of King of the Hill to know the specific examples of which you speak, but widespread jingoism would be accurate to the setting of 2000s Texas (we certainly had it in Oklahoma, and I can't imagine it stopped at the Red, given that George W. Bush was a Texan).

It wasn't the storylines (yes, those were historically accurate) so much as the high number of episodes that concluded with a billowing American flag and some inspirational trumpet music.

[vdeane]

- People that say streaming will replace regular linear TV are dopes.

It already has for a good segment of the population. Maybe not your demographic.

Yeah, I've been finding that my linear TV watching has been going down over the years.  These days it's mainly the local/national news on my local ABC station, Young Sheldon, Ghosts, and Holey Moley.  As shows eventually end I expect that to decline further.  I actually have streaming options for most of this at this point; my local news station streams its broadcast, and Paramount+/Hulu can cover most of the rest with a bit of a wait (I now even use Hulu to catch ABC's This Week on Sundays when I'm traveling and can't watch live since I got it for The Orville).  Even this is a lot by the standards of my generation.

[abefroman329]

- People that say streaming will replace regular linear TV are dopes.

It already has for a good segment of the population. Maybe not your demographic.

Yeah, I've been finding that my linear TV watching has been going down over the years.  These days it's mainly the local/national news on my local ABC station, Young Sheldon, Ghosts, and Holey Moley.  As shows eventually end I expect that to decline further.  I actually have streaming options for most of this at this point; my local news station streams its broadcast, and Paramount+/Hulu can cover most of the rest with a bit of a wait (I now even use Hulu to catch ABC's This Week on Sundays when I'm traveling and can't watch live since I got it for The Orville).  Even this is a lot by the standards of my generation.

Nothing is replacing OTA/cable TV until a much bigger percentage of the country has access to high-speed Internet access, but it will eventually, because...why would I tune in to watch my favorite TV show on Thursday at 7 Central when I can stream it whenever I want?

[triplemultiplex]

Here is perhaps the most unpopular King Of The Hill opinion ever:

Do Not Kill Off Lucky & Luanne.

It is very simple to recast them, even if it was live action. It has been done before even if an actor and actress died. And even if they killed them off, they would still need to hire a new actor and a new actress any ways for flashback scenes.

Don't have to kill 'em off or recast them. Just one throw away line about how they moved to wherevers-burg and that's why they're not around Arlen any more.
I dislike voice re-casts. My ears are highly tuned to certain voices and if the wrong noise comes out of a familiar character's face, it's jarring and off-putting.

The Simpsons did it for some of their "non-yellow" characters and it's bad.  It's like that character is being dubbed in a foreign language or something; I don't like it.  I'd rather lose those characters than hear a different voice come out of their faces, if I'm honest.

[Henry]

- GM, Ford, and Mopar are incapable of making a quality product.  They just don't care.

- Car dealers are not your friend.

In the same vein, ABC, CBS and NBC are incapable of making good shows; they just don't care.

TV stations are not "on your side"; that is quite possibly the most overused and overrated slogan in the news industry.

[kurumi]

All TV is educational, especially when children are watching. But the lessons it usually teaches are bad.

TV news has negative informational value. They just want to ramp up an emotion (usually outrage) enough to keep you watching through the next set of ads.

Reality TV killed network TV. Streaming picked up the baton with some high-quality shows; but now reality TV is infesting Netflix, Hulu, etc.

Having said that, I've changed my mind about Hulu.
What I thought: a bunch of Frasier and Friends reruns, and even if you pay, there are still ads? Frack that.
What I've experienced (piggybacking on a friend's account): hey, this is not bad. Brooklyn 99, Archer, Solar Opposites, the Prey movie, Futurama... and no ads yet (knock on wood). I'm happy to be wrong here.

[CoreySamson]

Another TV pet peeve of mine, relating to news...

Interviews (no matter what kind) are absolutely garbage. They don't really convey any new information, they are all pretty much the same across all news story types, they exist only to stir up emotions in people, and they are simultaneously boring and cringeworthy to watch. It especially irks me when interviews are used way too liberally in documentaries, especially weather documentaries.

They're so predictable that I know how people are going to answer the reporter's questions every time, and the answers never change (unless you're interviewing someone on drugs or something, then it becomes mildly funny).

[formulanone]

All TV is educational, especially when children are watching. But the lessons it usually teaches are bad.

When my kids were little, they were used to TV being either PBS or on DVD. They'd never watched a commercial, except for in a game on a tablet. And they knew how to fix that problem.

One day, we watched some live sporting event, and it broke for a commercial. My 4-year-old daughter told us to "please put the TV on Airplane Mode" so we wouldn't have to watch the advertisements.

I still wish that was a real feature.

[Scott5114]

Another TV pet peeve of mine, relating to news...

Interviews (no matter what kind) are absolutely garbage. They don't really convey any new information, they are all pretty much the same across all news story types, they exist only to stir up emotions in people, and they are simultaneously boring and cringeworthy to watch. It especially irks me when interviews are used way too liberally in documentaries, especially weather documentaries.

They're so predictable that I know how people are going to answer the reporter's questions every time, and the answers never change (unless you're interviewing someone on drugs or something, then it becomes mildly funny).

Interviews actually used to mean something. If you look at older interviews from the 60s and 70s there were a lot of hard-hitting interviews that actually exposed truths that were uncomfortable to the subject of interviews. There were basically three TV networks at the time, so if you wanted any chance at all of getting your side of the story out there, you basically had no choice but to go on NBC/ABC/CBS and answer their questions, whether you liked them or not.

What ended up happening was later on, when cable happened, and especially the Internet, is that interviewees just stopped agreeing to interviews with organizations having a reputation for difficult interviews. So all of the news outfits stopped giving difficult interviews because they wanted to still have access to interviewees. It was better for the bottom line to have an interview with someone that said nothing new or interesting than it was to not have an interview at all. Unfortunately, it also means that news networks do not hold their interviewees accountable in the way that they claim to, and in the way that needs to be done for the press to serve the function of informing the populace so that bad actors can be held accountable through the democratic process.

This has also led to siloing as the cable news networks have gotten partisan reputations. You hardly ever see a Democrat interviewed on Fox News, and hardly ever see a Republican interviewed on MSNBC. I can't imagine this is the choice of the editors; more likely, the politicians are worried they'll get a more difficult interview if they go on the "wrong" outlet and so won't sit for one with them. This is eminently rational from the politician's point of view, but it does mean that if someone gets in the habit of watching these networks they will never see the opposing point of view from the source.

[kirbykart]

The 90s sitcom NewsRadio is underrated. This could also go in the "Things that are underrated" thread.

[Route66Fan]

The Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, USA, Discovery Channel, History Channel, etc. are NOT TV stations but rather cable\satellite channels. ONLY channels that can be picked up over the air with a TV antenna (Those carrying ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, The CW, My Network TV & diginets like MeTV, Antenna TV, Cozi TV, etc.) ARE TV stations. I've seen people, on social media, erroneously refering to cable & satellite channels as TV stations. I also remember talking to somebody, years ago, about local TV stations & they thought that Nickelodeon was a local Kansas City area "TV station". Part of that could be that they, and others who think that all channels on cable\satellite TV are TV stations, probably grew up with only cable\satellite TV.

[roadman65]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IY0sxSbh4Y

Why go there to only feel like Sheriff Buford T. Justice and keep having this rhetorical question pop in my mind.  Don't watch TV and you focus on your life as personal experience I have found no noticeable difference between the sides of hype that is now ever so popular in pop culture.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Some takes:

* Network TV has steadily gone downhill since 2000 and hasn't really recovered.

* Cable is better, if you're willing to pay.

* Most TV shows should be limited to 8 years. By that point, they start running out of ideas and end up recycling old ideas and become little more than a paycheck for the cast and crew.

* Between the internet (esp. YouTube) and streaming services, there is little reason to watch most TV shows live, unless you're a dedicated fan.

* It will be a sad day, and a major hit to sports TV, when Charles Barkley retires from the NBA on TNT, which is indeed the best studio show in sports.

* Most cable tv/talk shows are utterly useless. Repetitive at best, mendacious at worst.

* TV, like movies, will be reshaped by streaming. In what way, who knows.

* Lots of great TV is out there, but it's harder to get noticed.

* Remakes of older shows aren't necessarily bad, but it's not exactly a sign of health.

Then, there's this:

https://www.axios.com/2022/08/18/streaming-surpasses-cable-tv-market-share

[J N Winkler]

I haven't watched a live TV program that wasn't sports in over 5 years, and I'm better off for it. That's probably an unpopular opinion here.

TV and movies in general are overrated. Outside of occasionally watching stuff on Disney+, I haven't really watched anything of note since February 2020. My life has probably been better because of it.

I'm close to that, Game of Thrones was probably the last TV series I watched live (or a few days later), and the only one in the last 10 years (that I can think of) that wasn't solely on a dedicated steaming platform. I honestly can't recall the last network TV series that I watched with any regularity, save maybe few scattered episodes of The Simpsons or King of the Hill.

I get some passive exposure to TV, mainly by walking past the flat-screen TV in the living room while the news is on, but other than that, I watch very little.  The last premium scripted dramas I viewed on a season-to-season basis were Game of Thrones and Outlander, and the last over-the-air broadcast drama was Supernatural.  I've since sat down for just a few scattered episodes of Poldark (2015 adaptation).  In the past I've alternated from binging on scripted series to watching virtually nothing over a 10- to 15-year cycle.

I am not even set up to watch anything in comfort.  If I want to see a film--I typically view a few recent blockbusters and classic movies a year--I usually get the DVD from the library and sit in my computer chair to watch it on my laptop.  I do have a TV in front of my reading chair, but it is 14" analog and has not been turned on in years.  I have watched one-hour episodes of various series on my tablet (weighs down my lap since I have to put it on a pillow to secure a suitable viewing angle) or my phone (hard on my elbow since I have to hold it right in front of my face).  If I were to return to binging, I'd probably need to spend several hundred dollars on a medium-sized flat-screen (maybe 30") and a DVD player.  At this stage I just don't have the interest in doing so.  It's not because I don't think TV isn't a cultural touchstone (it is), or because there aren't shows I'm interested in (Ozark and The Americans have caught my eye).  It's more to do with reading being the more consistently tempting leisure activity at this stage.

There's so many streaming services being offered that piracy is a better option most of the time.

Matt Yglesias (an economics commentator who used to write Slate's MoneyBox column) once observed that the economically optimal level of copyright infringement was nonzero.  Part of what you buy with a subscription is the peace of mind of not having to deal with copyright enforcement, which in the US attracts bottom-feeder lawyers.

[Scott5114]

There's so many streaming services being offered that piracy is a better option most of the time.

Matt Yglesias (an economics commentator who used to write Slate's MoneyBox column) once observed that the economically optimal level of copyright infringement was nonzero.  Part of what you buy with a subscription is the peace of mind of not having to deal with copyright enforcement, which in the US attracts bottom-feeder lawyers.

Streaming also presents the problem of some works getting memory-holed as contracts giving rights to a streaming service expire, or whenever corporate strategy somehow incentivizes doing so. There are posts circulating on Tumblr at the moment lamenting that HBO Max has deleted a large chunk of their library, including entire unaired seasons of animated shows and the only streaming access to Sesame Street, all for what appears to simply be a tax writeoff. This has negatively impacted some of the creative staff behind those shows, who have suddenly seen a large portion of their portfolio vanish overnight.

Piracy guarantees that someone will have access to the pirated work so long as the storage media remains viable. I don't pirate media myself because my interest level in mass media is low enough that I don't find it worth the trouble. However, my thoughts on intellectual property are radical enough that I question the need for copyright to exist in the first place, so if there were something I wanted bad enough to pirate, I would have no hesitancy to do so, purely out of an archivist desire if nothing else.

[J N Winkler]

Streaming also presents the problem of some works getting memory-holed as contracts giving rights to a streaming service expire, or whenever corporate strategy somehow incentivizes doing so. There are posts circulating on Tumblr at the moment lamenting that HBO Max has deleted a large chunk of their library, including entire unaired seasons of animated shows and the only streaming access to Sesame Street, all for what appears to simply be a tax writeoff. This has negatively impacted some of the creative staff behind those shows, who have suddenly seen a large portion of their portfolio vanish overnight.

Piracy guarantees that someone will have access to the pirated work so long as the storage media remains viable. I don't pirate media myself because my interest level in mass media is low enough that I don't find it worth the trouble. However, my thoughts on intellectual property are radical enough that I question the need for copyright to exist in the first place, so if there were something I wanted bad enough to pirate, I would have no hesitancy to do so, purely out of an archivist desire if nothing else.

Yes--I really disagree with rotating content availability and believe it incentivizes piracy.  And while I support copyright in principle as a way of ensuring creators get paid for their efforts, it is broken now (especially in the US) because media conglomerates (acting more as passive rights holders) constitute an overly powerful lobby.  It is really another symptom of extreme income inequality.