I was planning to wait until the season finales before writing about our spring/summer TV watching. But then this week, NBC announced that they would be either not renewing or renewing in a very limited capacity 30 Rock, Community and Parks and Recreation. Wow, talk about throwing a bomb on your programming. Thursday night NBC has been a powerhouse for the last few years with 5 shows, (yes, five, with their crazy programming flip flops) that were strong. Interestingly, The Office, the only show not chopped, has been the weakest of the bunch. I wanted the season with Michael Scott to be good but it really wasn’t.
Since I first wrote that some more details have emerged and it seems that all three shows have been picked up for 13 episodes–with, as I gather, room to expand if the new shows that NBC tries to fill their shoes with suck. If you want a positive spin on this, read the A.V. Club dude’s take on it (at the bottom of the post, final bullet point, although the whole post will tell you why it is such a good show if you’re not watching it.).
When I posted about TV last, Karen left a comment that we watch a lot of TV and that has stuck with me. I still don’t feel like we do… We watch a lot of shows, but we don’t channel surf, we don’t just have the TV on. We have appointment TV, is how I like to think of it. And, of course, while there a lot of titles, many drop off the list (by us or the networks) and quite a few are only 13 episodes long. But man, there has been a serious drop off in numbers after this season.
So let’s see what has been removed from the last post: (more…)