Sometimes TV is So Annoying I Just Have to Kill It

Several people close to me never watch TV, and they are proud when they tell people how their living rooms are bigscreen-free. I am not like them, and enjoy watching TV, but tonight I have got to admit I was forced to mute and then finally kill the thing after three different times.

First I surfed around and landed on ABC, where a show called Winter Wipeout was on. I’ve laughed before at the cruel spectacle of people trying to go through an impossible obstacle course, falling into water and being pummeled by giant swinging arms and scary protruding boxing gloves. But this time, it was even more cruel because snow was falling and the obstacle course was slick with ice. It was too much, I had to turn it off I felt so bad for those people trying vainly to get through it.

Then a show that I look forward to every week: The Office. But this time MIchael Scott’s awkward, sexually graphic toast at a wedding just was too much. It was so uncomfortable I couldn’t leave it on. Then on the same channel, Tina Fey’s well-written 30 Rock.

But the gag with the black comedian who kept blowing his one line filming a commercial was too much. Knowing that the pretend film crew in the show would have to do take after take just made me frustrated. Again, a silence filled my room, the silence of realizing that sometimes, TV is just too stupid and too annoying to put up with.