There's a reason it's called the Idiot Box

I've always been a TV junkie. Sure, when I was younger, I found a balance (forced by parents, but accepted once outside) and it worked out in the end, but a standard punishment for me was no TV for a week or something.
My parents, when they weren't working, protected me from a lot of the nonsense on the tube. More concerned about violence than the occasional boob shot, my father even kicked us out of the living room when "The Deer Hunter" was on because he wanted to watch it and he didn't want us to.
Saturday morning cartoons were alright, which is funny because the amount of 'violence' in old Warner Brothers and the like cartoons is staggering. But it was fake and our parents explained this to us. But temper those with Bob Ross and his "happy little trees" and episodes of "David & Goliath", along with the vast amount of classical music used in the scores of Looney Toon cartoons and it tended to be alright.
Along with that, while we watched shows like "Emergency!", "The Dukes Of Hazzard", "Buck Rogers", or "Battlestar Galactica", our parents were around to watch those shows with us and tried to strike the right balance between letting us watch these and knowing when the violence or sexual innuendos are going too far.
As I got older, Dad controlled the TV at night. My sister and I used to get miffed and would try to argue with him to watch something, which was a 50/50 chance, but it seemed we lost more than we won and wound up watching the History Channel or Discovery. To a young teenager, this is as boring as whale snot. How I long for those days.

Now... network TV is absolute shit. There's one or two shows that actually have decent writing, along with acting, but everything else is just... blah. Watch "The Big Bang Theory" and be mindful of the laugh track. Yes, that's not a studio audience; it's a recording. But once you know it's fake, pay attention to the 'jokes' that precede it and you'll probably find that 9 out of 10 are stupid.
How many "Law & Order"'s did they go through? 3? "CSI"? Shit, they added a second "NCIS" and watching it is like "Eh... not worthless, but do you really need 2?"

Cable networks aren't that much better. I'll get to my gripe with 'reality' shows, but just the series on them... a few pearls in an ocean of shit. Even some that start good go to hell because they start taking on things that are 'happening'. Nothing takes me out of a TV show like real life problems that currently affect me.

The cable 'reality' show: This fucking steaming pile.... son of a bitch! Each of these should get 1 season to expose people to this aspect of other people lives or try something new and then leave it the fuck alone. The idea for these came from having no-talent writers and actors who do a better job sucking dick and snorting coke than acting. These have ALL turned into soap operas. Every last one of them. Even with themes that are interesting to 'the workin' man' (Deadliest Catch, Sons Of Guns), the directors and producers always turn it into a drama about this guy or that relationship or something totally outside the realm of the original focus. Fuck me, that show "Gunsmoke"? Try and tell me that they didn't dress up the daughter in half-shirts and short-shorts to get ratings. Dare you to. And every station has 10 of them, pushing out shows that actually teach things. I remember when The Learning Channel used to have medical procedure shows. Or the History Channel showed history. Now, both these entities have spun up secondary channels to show the things that they were originally setup to show. Just like MTV2 (initially).
MTV2 used to show the weird videos that the regular MTV viewers didn't like. The non-pop music. Then, as MTV started with the reality shows and game shows, they actually promoted that MTV2 was all about the music videos. Now, they're both piles of pig shit.

Speaking of "game shows": This includes shit like "Survivor", "American Idol", and so on. One and done would have kept them interesting. Now? Same as the rest of the 'reality' bullshit. It's all about the drama or absolute failures; the human animals obsession with seeing others in pain and misery. William Hung - he was such a big deal because he sucked so fucking bad. He was carted out for the public's amusement "Look at the freak, mommy!" Don't give me the "He was trying his hardest and that's what people wanted to see" excuse. People loved him because it made them laugh at his failure, taking the focus away from their miserable lives.

Going real long form here, so bear with me.

Commercials - Always the bane of watching TV, they have both gotten absurd and useless. The DVR have made them quasi-obsolete, but they also make it so you don't watch things 'when they happen.' Along with that, they add a holy fuckload of them so a normal show or movie now runs forever. A&E had "Braveheart" on the other night. This is a long movie, no doubt. Runtime is 177 minutes; so basically 3 hours. Broadcast time was 4 hours. A solid hour of commercials. FUCK YOU!!! With this they add so many commercials that the credits (which I know are pointless, but if you worked hard on the show or movie, you'd want some credit, yes?) now run past the screen in a flash or they play them in split screen with... MORE FUCKING COMMERCIALS! And sports... holy fuck in a bucket... I was trying to watch a college football game and they had so many fucking commercials that they missed one or two play every time they went to break. What the fuck?!?!

The Scrolling Ticker - Thanks to the cable news channels for this piece of fuck. It's everywhere and the word 'distracting' does not even begin to describe this monstrosity. A close relative to this sphincter clinger is the Logo. The station, the show, the next show, the movie playing next Wednesday at 3:32am... It's like playing hide & seek with the show/movie. "I see you... where'd you go? Oh, there you are! Nope, gone again!"

It's no wonder why internet streams like Hulu or Netflix are so popular, but even though you're paying for it, I will all but guarantee that they'll find a way to inject more commercials and bullshit into these services. Many people have given up on cable or satellite, get a receiver for over-the-air local channels (many paid for by us taxpayers - Once again, fucked by The State), and are streaming TV shows. With that, they'll find a way to force-feed you commercials and shitty shows, just watch and wait.

You could try and turn it all off and 'go outside', but with every single aspect of life becoming more and more regulated, the minute you step out your door, it's like you're risking arrest. Fucking pathetic what we've become, isn't it?