Television Trauma

Today, a terrible and gut-wrenching national trauma comes to a head.

No, it's not the issues of gun control and racial tension as a result of the murder of a guard by a deranged white supremacist at the National Holocaust Museum.

No, it's not the issue of abortion as a result of the recent murder of a doctor (in church, no less) who performed abortions.

It's the transition from analog to digital television.

Yes, my friends, today is the day on which everyone with an older, analog TV set who has not obtained and installed a converter box to replace the old rabbit-ears antenna will find himself the proud owner of a large paperweight.

The horror, the horror!

I really don't understand how the poor folks who had old analog TV sets managed to survive without the 7,462 channels of television provided by their local cable systems. How could one manage in today's world without access to Jewelry Television, SOAPNet, The Church Channel, and 479 different sports channels?

Television offerings were the subject of a discussion at the bus stop yesterday afternoon. One of my fellow riders, a lady pursuing her masters degree in History, was lamenting that The History Channel had morphed over time into an "all World War II, all the time" format ... and that when she complained, they met her halfway by introducing shows like "Modern Marvels" which feature exciting topics like "The History of the Wrench." This could, of course, be an exciting show if you're one of those people who buys Popular Mechanics magazine for the centerfold, but somehow it falls a bit short for most of us.

The ultimate outcome of the transition from analog to digital television is that we'll have the same 7,462 channels of crud ... we'll just receive them in a crystal-clear high definition format.

It was the great radio and early television star Fred Allen who once said that television was a medium, because anything well-done is rare. I often wonder what he'd have thought about modern cable TV with its almost endless opportunities for niche programming. Need a show about cooking marinated emu intestines? It's probably out there. Want a "reality" show about attractive young people thrown together in utterly unrealistic situations? Got that, too. How about fly-fishing in streams which flow from northeast to southwest in states whose names begin with "A" and have populations between 13-28% gay? I'm sure you can find it in the "Sports Band" your cable service offers.

Whatever happened to the great shows like "Green Acres," "Mission: Impossible," and "The Great Adventure?"

Oh, yes - there's a channel for them, too: TVLand.

Groucho Marx was right - television is very educational. Whenever someone turns it on, go into the next room and read a good book.

And, sadly, even the book is likely to be digital today.

Have a good day. Cartoon Saturday coming tomorrow.

Bilbo