TV Garbage

Living a sedentary life after office hours in recent months, I really had not much choice but to wallow in TVland. With tens of cable broadcasts simply within the remote control's becking, just doing channel hopping is enough to lull me to sleep.

But when my cable connection got the ire of Edward Scissorhands a few days ago (walang pambayad, he he), I had to content myself with local TV fare.

And I realized it’s a good thing I still do some exercise (like lifting 125 ml bottles). For without such, I would have been easy prey to high blood pressure, given the disappointing results of my surfing.

Take these for example:

• A debate on Charter Change was featured on one channel involving St. Theresa’s College and Southridge School. Aside from the irritating tone of STC’s lady debaters (they seem to have equated shouting and rapid talking with quality reasoning), what was more assaulting to my fragile brain was the resulting “ battle of the you-know-whats”.
  
  The first debater argued this way: “The problem with so much checks and balances is, you know what, blah blah blah. But you know what, blah blah blah, and then, you know what, blah blah blah. There must have been about ten you know whats within the two minute time allotment.
  
  I thought the inanities were over, but you know what? The opposing side also talked with the same you know whats spicing his every paragragh. And so did the other debaters. Is “you-know-what” the thought-filler of the new generation? Enough! Next channel, please.

• Pinoy Dream Academy encourages its “scholars” to compose songs. No arguments there. But since these are supposed to be students, they should at least be guided in the proper structure of their pieces. Listen to the winning composition which became the show’s theme song: “Nais naming marating, tuktok ng mga bituin.”
  
  Paano yun? Pagkatapos nilang marating ang mga bituin, hahanapin pa nila ang tuktok, ala Mt. Everest? Napakasadista namang contest nyan! :-)
  
• Advertisements already take much of our viewing time and to avoid abuse, I know there are rules setting specific limits to the amount of commercial spots that can be accommodated per program. But ABS-CBN blatantly skirts the rules by placing advertisements right within the program!

• On PDA the other night, a beauty company endorsed its products via a supposed session on skin care for the would-be celebrities. But it was of course clear that they were talking directly to the viewers. Dencio’s, another sponsor, had its menu lavishly discussed in the segment where the contestants paid the restaurant a visit.
  
  And on Crazy for You, Dennis Padilla is supposed to have gotten work at Globe. So every time he’s at work, he gets to discuss the features of various Globe services. Even his wife joined the fray as she does auto-loading at home. And to complete the package, shots of the Globe banner are made to occupy bigger space on screen than the characters.

This is crass, shameless commercialism. No wonder, ABS-CBN is now earning.