Turn Off Your Tellybox
I recently finished watching the last of a fantastic anime series called Cowboy Bebop. It’s a little reminiscent of Firefly, but tends to be much more lighthearted, and yet more adult, than the cult series we Browncoats know and love. And now it’s over, I want to watch it all again.
This got me thinking: why haven’t more people watched this? There’s more than one reason: lack of time, dislike of cartoons, the difficulty in obtaining copies of Japanese work… I’m sure the list is endless. But the main reason hit me a little while later (and it seems bloody obvious now): there’s too much crap on TV. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem in itself, but you insist on watching it like you have nothing better to do. You turn it on, sit down for an hour or three and let the magic box tell them what they want to experience.
Unfortunately, the magic box is stupid.
I’m going to use my flatmate, Andrew, as a prime example. Now Andy, I love you, but for fuck’s sake, if Judge Judy is the only thing on, turn the fucking TV off and do something else. Read a book, do some revision, fix that damned computer that’s been unusable without an Ubuntu live CD for a month now… hell, do the dishes - they’ve been piling up for ages.
I should sort out those dishes. And probably take the rubbish out too.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that you don’t like most of what’s on TV. You realise that, but you persist in watching whatever jumps out at you from the damned TV Guide because it’s easier than getting off your arse and doing something useful… like learning to juggle. Instead of even popping a DVD in when nothing’s on, you insist on watching repeats of crap dramas on uktv Gold. Now stop it.
There is another way. Get a TiVo or Sky Plus, or hell, download BBC iPlayer. Actually, screw that: ask your mates for a recommendation of a good TV show you haven’t seen every episode of a hundred and thirty-one times and download it off BitTorrent (side note: piracy is bad - it wasn’t me what told you to do it). Your friends are the best spam-filter you’ll ever find: make them do the hard work of finding decent shows. If you’re doing it right, you’ll be recommending stuff to them constantly too. Because here’s the secret: there are loads of awesome shows on TV. And if you stop watching the first thing you see, you might just find them.
Now go grab a torrent of Cowboy Bebop and let the awesomeness commence.
