Are There Too Many Countdowns?
I ran across an article from Newsday by Diane Wertz claiming there are too many countdowns on television nowadays. Obviously, VH1 is a pioneer of this type of programming and relies on it heavily to fill in its programming schedule. Here is a part of Ms. Wertz’s thoughts on the subject (read the whole article by clicking here):
Countdown shows are the curse of cable today, lining up our shared experiences in handy numerical fashion and trivializing them all to the point of repugnance. The 20 best, the 50 worst, the 100 sexiest, the 101 most embarrassing. It isn’t just E! and VH1 anymore, those peppy repositories of pop-culture ephemera. They started the craze for counting down hits/duds, weddings/breakups and assorted faux pas, bridging the illustrating clips with faux-funny comments from irrelevant snarksters like furry comedy writer Bruce Vilanch and dread satirist Mo Rocca. Now everybody’s in the act. BET. CMT. MTV. Fox Sports and Golf Channel. Even Food Network and HGTV.
I, personally, love countdown shows and have seen almost all of them that have aired (although I admit I’ve missed some of the newer ones due to actually having to work–go figure!) and most of them more than once. Lately it does seem they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas, but until every single pop culture reference has been indexed and given an arbitrary number in a countdown, I’m more than happy with the shows and will debate with my friends what rankings were spot on and which were totally insane.
So, my friends, debate with me! Leave some comments about your feelings on the countdown shows and what shows you think should be made.
April 19th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I love ‘em too! For me, the fun part is in trying to guess what made the list, and what could possibly be number one.
April 19th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I’m with you, too, Carrie. I have been known to yell and throw things at my TV when my pick isn’t #1 or what they did pick for #1 was clearly the wrong choice. Luckily, that doesn’t happen very often and I usually agree with their rankings.
This weekend it’s “100 Greatest Kid Stars” (it’s a rerun, but I’ll probably catch at least a part of it).