Troubles

I was fully intending to review Skating With The Stars tonight, the latest American version of a British reality-competition show, but I can't do that this week because of problems with my Digital Cable Box/DVR. It's difficult to describe what's been happening – though I'll have to when I call Shaw Cable in the afternoon – but the adjective that comes to mind is "jittery." The sound is fine, mostly, but the images don't flow the way that they're supposed to. It's worse when there's a show with a lot of action like a sports event or a show like Dancing With The Stars or this new series Skating With The Stars. It's even worse when you try to watch a show that you've recorded on the DVR. Resetting the cable box, aka unplugging the box waiting a minute and plugging it back in again, did clear up the problems...for about 50-60 minutes. It is, in simple terms, not a practical solution.

Trying to watch Skating With The Stars came close to making me feel nauseous. Now under normal circumstances feeling nauseous part way through a show might be considered a clue about the show's quality, but in this case it wasn't because of the quality of the show it was the way that the images jumped around on the screen. It reached a point where I just couldn't watch the show anymore and turned the TV off. In all good conscience I can't review the show if I haven't seen a complete episode and under conditions where I'm not wondering if any problems I have with the show are the result of the medium rather than the program.

There are a few things that I could say about the show (or rather the judges and hosts) but I'm going to wait until I can (hopefully) resolve this problem with my DVR and can actually watch a full episode (I was going to say "enjoy a full episode" but I'm not holding out that much hope for this show).