I don’t watch much TV, but I do tend to watch more if A) I have a cable connection, B1) I’m sitting around icing my foot so I can’t get up and do much and/or B2) there’s too much smoke and ash in the air to want to go outside.
But I’ve decided that I will never watch another show that features a panel of contestants who are eliminated one by one, either by each other, or by an equally or in some cases far more insipid group of panelists (or worse, by an audience or phone-in poll). I will make an exception only when those eliminated are immediately and graphically executed by their fellow contestants. Bonus points if any of the judges and/or audience members or people who called the 900 numbers are executed, either on purpose or accidentally; I assume most of them would be fragged with “friendly fire”.
What I’d really like is an easier way to eliminate television channels that either I haven’t subscribed to, or that I know I will never watch. Most of them can be removed by entire class of channel: I can live without seeing any of the Spanish or foreign-language channels. Eliminate the home shopping channels (again, preferably by execution). Remove the pay-per-view, HBO, Showtime, etc. Get rid of all the sports channels (despite my futile desire to someday see sumo, rally car racing, or gladiator battles). Then there’s a bunch that I’d want to remove one-by-one. I can do this at the moment, through a bizarre clicker incantation that appears to also summon demons that leave dirty dishes in the sink and dirty socks on the floor. Or maybe that’s just Elvis. In any case, I can create “favorites” then painstakingly and laboriously delete every unwanted channel – but then every time I turn the cable box on I apparently have to put it back in Mode Favorites A or something.
That, and I’d like to have on-the-fly favorites that I can tag shows that I want to “surf between”, similar to the “last” button that flips between two shows. With the number of commercials and/or junk content, it should be possible to watch three or four shows at once.