What I Think About That 4/5

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&quot;What I Think About That, with Hal Grumpkins&quot;

Dearest Readers,

I was watching the screen last night, as a gentleman of my age tends to do. The latest episode of &quot;Restless Hearts: Back to the Bay&quot; was just ending, and the opening horns of the &quot;AutomaTron Takedown&quot; theme were just beginning to play.

And readers, I suddenly found that I was just plain bored.

Like most of you, I grew up in front of that great big screen. And I ate pretty much anything it fed me. I remember the whole family crowding around at dinner time, waiting to see what kind of hijinks those Bayside guys and gals would get into. The parents would shoo my sister and I off to bed when AutomaTron came on—we were too young for that sort of thing—and we'd listen to the explosions and the excitement through the floor.

That was years ago, but it occurred to me last night that Bayside hasn't changed much. The queen-bee cheerleader is Mandy now (not Miranda), the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks is Luc (not Leo). But the fights and the friendships and the adventures are exactly the same as when I was only knee-high. Then when the credits roll, AutomaTron still comes on after, as always, waiting to crush a few skulls. In all these years, not a thing has changed.

The banner on the credits says &quot;New Media Studios&quot;. Hah! Starting to feel like like &quot;Tired Old Media.&quot;

Darned if it didn't irk me. Doesn't anyone want a little variety out of life? Have we really been watching the same stuff my whole lifetime? Well readers, I decided to haul my old bones down to the local datacenter to ruminate on it.

Do you know what I found? We haven't been watching them just for my lifetime, we've been watching them for four hundred years. The cheerleader was named &quot;Missy&quot; and the bad-boy &quot;Luke&quot;, and darned if they didn't live in the same posh seaside town (only named &quot;Bayville&quot; back then). AutomaTron had a few less limbs and moved a little slower, but he still had the same glowing eyes.

Six hundred years, gentle readers. They stopped bothering to number the seasons after the first hundred years or so.

It's not just our favorite primetime shows: everything on the lineup is hundreds of years old. &quot;Extreme Home Gardening&quot;, &quot;Cop Court&quot;, &quot;World Idol&quot;. Even those tanned dullards on &quot;No, Screw YOUR Mother!&quot; have been doing their thing for longer than I've been alive.

Readers, I was stunned. Has nobody had an original idea since our ancestors walked around in fedoras and animal skins?

Well, turns out somebody did. Take a look at this memo from the year 2110. I found it buried deep in that datacenter under a layer of dust and adware:

Market Analysis summary for May 2110 Sweeps - New Media (Corporate)

Aggregate ratings in the 18 - 25 demo show significant weakness in slated Spring 2110 &quot;New Media's 'New Hotness!'&quot; initiative. Of the four slated offerings, only one managed to break a 45 share on premier, and all four dropped to a 12 share by episode three.

Direct polling analysis showed a strong aversion to the &quot;newness&quot; and &quot;unfamiliarity&quot; of the &quot;New Media's 'New Hotness!'&quot; slate. Most viewers failed to understand new rules and failed to connect with characters within the first two or three minutes, leading to high turnover. Even when not matched against popular counter-programming, polled viewer responses ranged from &quot;Negative&quot; to &quot;Very negative&quot;, citing &quot;confusion&quot; as their main emotional response.

Analysis concludes that market is not receptive to programming that significantly deviates from the norm. Current meta analysis and viewer modeling techniques have already found the maximal data point elements required to elicit user affinity, comfort, and pleasurable response, and deviation from the given formula will likely only erode viewership.

Translation: they found out what we liked and they kept on shoveling.

I don't know about you, readers, but I think a little &quot;New Hotness&quot; is just what the doctor ordered. I already know that Mandy or Miranda or Molly will end up with the bad boy, and that AutomaTron will be feasting on the weak before the second commercial break. Anything that damn screen shows me I've seen a thousand times before.

And that's just what I think about that.

Hal Grumpkins