Who am, you ask? I’m Brent McKee the proprietor of this little corner of the Internet that is forever England. No, wait, that’s something else. Oh right; that is forever maintained for the ramblings of a Canadian who is outside the preferred demographic for the TV audience about American TV. That’s a triple irrelevant score. First, because I’m Canadian my opinions or viewership of TV shows doesn’t matter to US network executives. Secondly, because I’m outside the 18-49 demographic I might as well dry up and go away since the networks are convinced that people such as me aren’t effected by advertising and they make their money on advertising. Finally, writing criticism about TV shows might be the most irrelevant thing ever. People may make their choices of the movies they watch based on what a movie critic says (although this certainly doesn’t explain the success of things like the Transformers movies) but when it comes to TV they watch what they watch and don’t give a damn what professional TV watchers say. Want proof?
- Exhibit A: Two And A Half Men is starting its 10th season and has won two Emmys for acting, while Firefly only had 14 episodes shot, and John Noble was never nominated for an Emmy for playing Walter Bishop on Fringe.
- Exhibit B: The fact that the ratings for the series finale of Battlestar Galactica were less than a quarter of the ratings for most episodes of the current season of Duck Dynasty (and I like Duck Dynasty, but still…).
- Exhibit C: Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. ‘Nuff said.
Despite the irrelevance of what I’m doing, and despite the fact that I don’t have the various premium services that will deliver unto me what is supposed to be the “new Golden Age” of Television, I am back to tilt at critical windmills again. I think that over the past couple of years I’ve become increasingly burned out by the process, and maybe by some of the frustrations that I just vented about. In the past I’ve tried to write through the sense of being burned out, but this summer I took the opposite approach. Except for some forum comments (mostly at the soccer management game site Hattrick.org, I haven’t written a damned thing since May. We’ll see how that works won’t we.
