Published October 2, 2005 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
By Aaron J. Brown
It’s October. For many that means one thing: new TV shows.
Yes, that’s right. Shelve that family interaction and hit “save” on that Great American Novel you’ve been writing. It’s time for the sweet narcotic of pop culture. Obsolete broadcast networks, unleash your dogs of war!
Each year, executives from a place devoid of weather, where the ground shakes and aging is forbidden, produce new television programs aimed at Middle Americans who resent Hollywood. The results are often hilarious! Just not in any sort of intentional way.
For instance, remember how last year we got both “Wife Swap” and “Trading Mommies” in the same season on different networks. Then there were a whole slew of shows involving British nannies and dysfunctional American families. The symbolic pre-Revolutionary War irony of these shows was lost on most viewers.
CBS decided to breed its successful CSI show and produce a variety of CSI offshoots, such as “CSI-Miami” and “CSI-Las Vegas.” I’m surprised the network didn’t just let its affiliates produce a local CSI with the name of their town in the title. I’d tune in to see “CSI-Duluth” if only to see UMD drama students awkwardly pronounce the word “hemochromastosis.”
In honor of the 2005-06 season, I’ve developed a fun game for our readers. I’m going to list some scenarios and you’re going to guess if each scenario is from a new television show or an actual news item ripped from the headlines. The answers are below.
Scenario 1: Sitcom idea. A mother learns that the sample she received from the sperm bank to use in the conception of her now-grown daughter was not from the highly intelligent, attractive donor she was told about, but some fat, stupid guy.
Scenario 2: Drama idea. A team of trained military dolphins escapes into the Gulf of Mexico after a major hurricane. U.S. officials cannot locate the armed sea-mammals, and fear what they might do once emancipated from their human overlords.
Scenario 3: Drama idea. A complex bureaucracy prevents the U.S. military and intelligence community from doing an effective job. A brash, idealistic young officer meets resistance in his efforts to effect change at the Pentagon.
Scenario 4: Sitcom idea. A day after becoming a U.S. citizen, a recent Kenyan immigrant learns he won $1.8 million in the Iowa lottery.
Scenario 5: Drama idea. Aliens come to earth under the guise of a terrible hurricane to turn Earthlings into mindless pod people as part of a complex occupation of our planet for unknown purposes.
ANSWER KEY: (1) new show, “Misconceptions,” WB network; (2) news item, “Dolphin assassins menace Gulf of Mexico; rogue cetacean death squad may be armed” from the British publication “The Register”; (3) BOTH! New show, “E-Ring,” NBC, and pretty much the top news story of the past five years – only in real-life news, idealistic people end up as disgruntled cable network analysts after a couple weeks at the real Pentagon; (4) news item, “Man takes citizenship oath, wins lottery,” AP; (5) new show, “Invasion,” ABC, though many new network shows appear to be targeting mindless pod people as a key demographic group.
So there you have it. I am most intrigued by the dolphin attack squad still reportedly at large in the Gulf of Mexico (and the headline was my favorite of the year, especially the “rogue cetacean death squad” part). Of course, if Hollywood ever did turn that real story into a new show, you know they’d do something stupid like cast Joey Lawrence as the lead dolphin.
Happy watching! Those whose brain cells survive this first week of TV shows can meet me here next week for an intellectual discussion of the Supreme Court vacancy. I’m just not promising that I’ll make it through the week myself.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.