It is just me, or are TV shows getting shorter? It used to be that programs would end about a minute before the top or bottom of the hour and lead directly into the next show. But now they seem to end with about five minutes before the next show starts, go to commercial and then come back just to show us the credits. The worst part is that you don't even realise it at first, assuming they are going to come back for another couple of minutes because there is so much time remaining, but all you end up seeing is a list of who worked on the show, which is useless.
Making my case for credits not being necessary are channels like TNT and TBS because they will actually show the credits from the movie which is ending on a crawl at the bottom of the screen while the credits for the movie that is just starting show on top. Honestly, if I don't stick around for the credits in the movie theatres, where I could actually read them in I wanted to, what makes you think I'm going to squint to see them for the half-second they are on a TV? The only people who want to see the credits are the people who worked on the show to prove to their family and friends they did it and, trust me, they already have a copy. I feel this is just a waste of valuable time.
It can't be that there are more commercials, because if that were the case I wouldn't just be seeing the same four commercials every time we went to break. And you just know the advertiser who end up with this last block of commercials aren't happy about it, because the last thing you want is your product to be tied in with disappointment, but that is exactly what happens. Now I'm always going to associate their product with people who don't give me what I was expecting. Is that the message you want, Ford? I hope you at least got a discounted price for the time slot.
What's even more annoying than when I am deprived of my entertainment is when it turns out that I'm also being misled. Given the nature of sitcoms, 2 minutes is usually more than enough time to wrap up whatever hijinks the heroes of the show I am watching are involved in. However, on more than one occasion (especially this week (which is why I'm annoyed enough by it to write a blog post) because several shows seem to be doing two-part season finales) I've been watching something, ready for the conclusion, only to see the dreaded "To Be Continued..." graphic appear. This just served to make me madder, because now I know next week's episode is going to stink as they now have to stretch 2 minutes of content into 22 minutes of dialog.
I know that reality TV shows have really been a blow to the people who write for TV. Honestly, it's not easy or fun to work really hard coming up with new material every week when the guy across the hallway got rich by sticking obnoxious people in a house, getting them drunk and filmed it. I get that. Still, I'm not asking them to turn every show into "The West Wing". I just want them to actually finish jokes or spend another minute to further explain what the hell I just watched. I'm much more likely to come back next week or sit through one more commercial break if I know I'm going to be entertained.
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I hate, hate, hate commercials. For one thing, you're already PAYING for cable - why should you be subjected to advertisements? For another thing, now all the channels seem to sync up when they go to commercial break, so if you try to change the channel to see if something else is on, you're met with more commercials. Come on. Give us a break. When will the rest of the consumers start to revolt?
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