Wind In My Head: Attack interrupted
Wind In My Head
Friday, February 23, 2007
Attack interrupted
Packrat's gaming tonight and since I can hardly keep my eyes open after 10pm, I decided to spend an evening in, on the couch watching bad television. I wanted to watch Pearl Harbour, not because I like the show but I like watching the attack scene. I kept switching the tv on and off because we needed to get dinner and other necessary errands and I kept hurrying Packrat because I didn't want to miss the attack scene. All the preamble I didn't really give a rat's ass about. I needn't have had to worry though because the attack scene didn't happen till past nine. And about 7 minutes into it, it was unceremoniously cut so that we could switch over to regular programming and air the news.Brilliant.
I wasn't all that annoyed when the credits suddenly rolled, it wasn't like I didn't know that most of the ships sank, most of the crew men died and Pearl Harbour was basically obliterated. But I was disappointed, that once again Mediacorp had done it again.
Done what?
Basically show that it's got shit for brains and it uses all of it for its programming. Even illegal pirates know better than to cut a movie at its crucial climax and continue it on a new disc. It simply breaks the continuity and from a cinematic point of view, it reduces the impact the director intended the scene to have. And that's what happened here. Pearl Harbour is an extremely long and tedious movie to watch. I don't think anyone would have noticed if they had cut it 10 minutes earlier when it was still about how "I left my girl to go to war and just because you thought I was dead, you my best friend, make moves on my girl and now that I'm back, she don't love me no more, boo hoo hoo". Why? Why couldn't that have been done?
I use the word disappointed because I've been pissed off at them before. And since a snarky, nasty letter didn't get any sort of response and programming didn't show any signs of improvement, I can only summon up the disappointment in me. Anger takes too much effort and I'm not sure it's all that worth it, considering who we are talking about. Good American television shows are put at strange times, late at night or in the middle of a weekend afternoon. Of course no one watches it! And put dermatologically challenged teenagers in front of harsh spot lights thereby exposing their physical flaws while they pretend to be part of an intellectual discourse about the hot topic of the week during a prime time spot no less- a brilliant stroke of intellectual genius!
One does wonder how the people in programming actually function. What colour is their world? Is their sun bright purple? Does their ruler have tentacles? Who knows? But one thing for sure, their brand of logic, definitely not earth logic. And once their logic differs from ours, there's really not much point in reasoning with them. Excuses are abound and no one would understand where either of us are coming from.
Time now to go watch some cable.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, television
Ondine tossed this thought in at 21:35
3 thoughts...
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At 9:58 pm
xdd_rulz said... haha.i like the attack part too!yea..=)
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At 4:42 pm
cour marly said...
A friend of mine who used to work for Ch5 programming department told me that good US shows slotted at ungodly hours yield almost the same viewership ratings as when slotted at prime time. And it was pretty poor either way. So prime time goes to blockbuster movies and crap local productions. And while we may think it crap, those local productions cost less than broadcast rights for US shows and pull in better ratings.
Mind you, my friend is a huge fan of good US teevee, but she says when you see the ratings bloodbath for US shows at prime time, there's little choice but to go with crap.-
At 1:33 am
Jason is Bizzi said...
thank goodness for cable.. couldn't be bothered with Ch 5 anymore, not even the news..