After a few days off my feet

[Jenise]

So this week I've been laid up with an injured foot requiring elevation and therefore spent rather a lot of time in front of daytime TV which I'm otherwise not into. Some thoughts:

The Chew: Previous to this week I watched about 15 minutes each of two different episodes the first week it was on, both of which I found atrocious. Has anything changed? Heck no. They're still playing to the lowest common denominators out there in viewerland. They were all dressed up in period costumes for Presidents Day. Hated seeing people I otherwise like acting beneath themselves for the sake of keeping some bored housewife glued to the TV. Couldn't stand ten minutes of it.

Nigella Lawson and Paula Deen: I watched Nigella make "Mexican Lasagna". This was a layered dish of badly overlapping extra thick flour tortillas (meaning doubled up in some places, but no tortilla at all in others) stacked up four inches high on center in a barely 2" tall skillet with alternating layers of canned tomato stuff, canned corn stuff, jalapeno slices out of a jar, and cheese. Then, separately, I watched Paula Deen put canned tomaotes and canned corn (plus the other usual suspect, canned black beans) into a bowl and call it 'Mexican salsa'. I found myself filled with rage and laid there on my sofa, shaking my cane at the screen like some angry old fart. I want the world to know this: CANNED CORN DOES NOT SOMETHING MEXICAN MAKE! AND, DAMMIT, THE RED STUFF IN MEXICAN FOOD IS CHILES, NOT TOMATOES! Now Mexican cuisine is not haute, but it's dear to me and I'm absolutely fed up with people who didn't grow up on tacos insulting it's wonderful, intense and complicated flavors with a mere approximation of color. Oh, and Nigella: those chopped red bell peppers you threw in didn't count. Not even close.

Dr. Oz: Engaging guy. Good looking, well spoken, great on camera, reeks of nurture and sensitivity. MosDef housewife bait. But oh dear, here we go again, it's all for the ladies. Why can't programming aimed at women presume that we have an attention span? Now he doesn't need to sit there in the dark and drone on like Charlie Rose (which is much more to my tastes), but wearing scrubs and hopping from table to table as if we'd go to sleep if he didn't move every five seconds is just ridiculous. And the segments! All quizzes and games--makes learning fun, and god knows we girls wouldn't learn a thing if we didn't get a prize for it. And I'll bet you're all just crazy jealous that I now know, and you don't, the Five Health Secrets You Can Find At The Dollar Store. Oh pleeeze. I think that show is an hour. How in the world do they fill up an hour every day with drivel like that?**

Thank God for CNN.

**However, if any of you tuned in yesterday to find out how you can lose your butt by eating mashed potatoes for lunch every day for a week, DO share.

[Cynthia Wenslow]

The Chew: Previous to this week I watched about 15 minutes each of two different episodes the first week it was on, both of which I found atrocious. Has anything changed? Heck no. They're still playing to the lowest common denominators out there in viewerland. They were all dressed up in period costumes for Presidents Day. Hated seeing people I otherwise like acting beneath themselves for the sake of keeping some bored housewife glued to the TV. Couldn't stand ten minutes of it.

You hit it exactly, Jenise. I really wanted to like it, and tried recording it a few times. Can't get through it. I love three of the people on that show... normally. One of whom I interact with on a personal level in another area of my life. That person is consuming many more cocktails lately to get through doing this show.

Why can't programming aimed at women presume that we have an attention span?

And some intelligence.

[Redwinger]

One of my High School classmates posted the following on facebook recently:

watching "The Chew" on ABC, love this show, entertaining, informative and they always make me laugh. A great combination of hosts who really seem to genuinely like each other. Good TV.

As I recall, she ranked near the bottom of a rather undistinguished class.

I've never watched the show, and based upon Jenise's review, probably never will.

[Mark Lipton]

One of my High School classmates posted the following on facebook recently:

watching "The Chew" on ABC, love this show, entertaining, informative and they always make me laugh. A great combination of hosts who really seem to genuinely like each other. Good TV.

As I recall, she ranked near the bottom of a rather undistinguished class.

Wow, 'Winger, you've got HS classmates with computers??? Most of my classmates aren't eligible for parole until next decade.

Mark Lipton

[Christina Georgina]

There's a great blog lurking in those comments Jenise. Criticism of daytime TV blogs probably exist but yours certainly resonates. We don't own a TV but I have been in culture shock when I catch a glimpse at others homes....there's another shocker for me...leaving the TV on when guests arrive.
Hope the foot heals quickly.

[Redwinger]

Wow, 'Winger, you've got HS classmates with computers???
Mark Lipton

Mark-
Actually, the day rooms at most old age homes have a community computer that we share. I do avoid using it, as the drool on the keyboards is quite disturbing.
BP

[Redwinger]

...there's another shocker for me...leaving the TV on when guests arrive.

I think that is rude as well unless it is part of the reason for the get together, say a Super Bowl party. We seldom watch TV and never have the TV on when entertaining. On a couple of occasions in the distant past, we have had a guest ask if it is OK if they turn it on to watch some show or another. Nooo jackwagon, it is not OK.

[Cynthia Wenslow]

I lived without TV for nearly 20 years, but then it suddenly appeared in my living room a few years back so someone else in the household could watch football.

I record some things here and there, but don't often get around to watching them. I did more of that when my daughter was staying with us briefly, because she'd snark out over a couple shows and it was funny watching her, more than the shows.

[Jenise]

So nobody tuned in yesterday to find out about the mashed potatoes, eh? (I didn't make that up.)

Cynthia, has your acquaintance expressed disappointment? Did the show get dumbed down from what was originally intended? What I saw this week was no different than the last 20 minutes (all I saw) of the inaugural episode so I can't imagine it did, it's just that it is so much less substantive than what I read it was going to be. It's also possible that the fault is my imagination, I wanted more and I couldn't imagine anything this bad.

[Mark Lipton]

Wow, 'Winger, you've got HS classmates with computers???
Mark Lipton

Mark-
Actually, the day rooms at most old age homes have a community computer that we share. I do avoid using it, as the drool on the keyboards is quite disturbing.
BP

Err... you sure that it's drool, Bill?

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

Err... you sure that it's drool, Bill?

Mark Lipton

[Cynthia Wenslow]

Cynthia, has your acquaintance expressed disappointment?

I would say that there is disappointment, yet the show is apparently delivering strong ratings, so nobody is going to leave before contracts are up. I don't know about "dumbed down," but I don't think it's the way they envisioned it.

[Jon Peterson]

After college, I had two months of doing nothing before I got my first real job which lead to my court career. During those two months, I started watching the soaps and I really got into them; in retrospect, it was very scary how I got sucked into them. I think daytime TV is like a bad mind-numbing drug.

[Rahsaan]

I think daytime TV is like a bad mind-numbing drug.

In that respect, it's similar to most nighttime TV

(Although I'm far from an anti-TV person. There is lots of great programming. There is just even more terrible programming).

[Jenise]

Cynthia, has your acquaintance expressed disappointment?

I would say that there is disappointment, yet the show is apparently delivering strong ratings, so nobody is going to leave before contracts are up. I don't know about "dumbed down," but I don't think it's the way they envisioned it.

Dumbed down--well, they compared what they wanted to do to The View-with-food, a show which, while not exactly a think tank of a show, is downright sober in comparison. They don't play games, as far as I can tell. I also recall the article I read bragging that all food prep would be real-time. That is, they wouldn't demonstrate mixing a dish on one counter and then pull a baked version, obviously made up earlier, out of the oven two seconds later. But one day while waiting to pick something up at the service counter at my car dealership, the TV in the adjacent waiting room had this show on and I watched them do just that. Small things maybe but a definite lowering of standards.

[Jenise]

After college, I had two months of doing nothing before I got my first real job which lead to my court career. During those two months, I started watching the soaps and I really got into them; in retrospect, it was very scary how I got sucked into them. I think daytime TV is like a bad mind-numbing drug.

I did that too when I was a teenager. It was shocking 20 years later to work in an office where a group of secretaries watched the same show I'd gotten sucked into in the lunchroom every day, so I'd catch five minutes of it here and there on the days when I heated up a lunch for myself, and see the same bitchy characters creating the same bitchy problems. Nothing changed!

[Mike Filigenzi]

Last time I was laid up for a couple of days, I watched the entire first two seasons of "Breaking Bad". Best illness I ever had.

[Jenise]

Last time I was laid up for a couple of days, I watched the entire first two seasons of "Breaking Bad". Best illness I ever had.

I haven't seen the show, but from what I've read I'd love it if I did. Did you stream it? Perhaps its on one of the channels that's available on On Demand (I can't remember if its AMC or Showtime), but we haven't hooked ourselves up for that yet, but it sure would have been huge to have this week.

[Jenise]

A report from the front: able to get around better now and tired of being useless, I decided today to polish all the lower kitchen cabinets (this of course requires that Bob pitch in and do the uppers--good planning, eh girls? ) and flipped on the TV to fill the silence and found The Chew. What were they cooking? Absof---inglutely nothing. They were doing Oscar fashion, and worse: audience makeovers! This show isnt about food, it's about boredom and insecurity.

[Mike Filigenzi]

Last time I was laid up for a couple of days, I watched the entire first two seasons of "Breaking Bad". Best illness I ever had.

I haven't seen the show, but from what I've read I'd love it if I did. Did you stream it? Perhaps its on one of the channels that's available on On Demand (I can't remember if its AMC or Showtime), but we haven't hooked ourselves up for that yet, but it sure would have been huge to have this week.

I streamed it from Netflix. I believe that the first three seasons are now available there.

If you get the chance, watch it from the beginning. The evolution of Bryan Cranston's character is really something to see.

[Cynthia Wenslow]

That is, they wouldn't demonstrate mixing a dish on one counter and then pull a baked version, obviously made up earlier, out of the oven two seconds later. But one day while waiting to pick something up at the service counter at my car dealership, the TV in the adjacent waiting room had this show on and I watched them do just that. Small things maybe but a definite lowering of standards.

Yep, that was one thing that was mentioned to me. When you put all those small things together, well....

And glad you are getting around better. But now you made me feel I need to clean the cabinets too.

[Jenise]

If you get the chance, watch it from the beginning. The evolution of Bryan Cranston's character is really something to see.

That's what I understand and what got me so interested. Very, very unusual TV.

[Bill Spohn]

Best thing I've done recently with TV is to get a network PVR system. I can record anything I want to watch, watch it either upstairs of in the home theatre downstairs (wired network to the PVR from any TV, and I never watch a commercial - just zap them.

Now I watch what I want, when I want and I haven't watched anything live in quite awhile. It saves a lot of time and eliminates sitting there watching something inane just because nothing better is on.

[Jenise]

Best thing I've done recently with TV is to get a network PVR system. I can record anything I want to watch, watch it either upstairs of in the home theatre downstairs (wired network to the PVR from any TV, and I never watch a commercial - just zap them.

Now I watch what I want, when I want and I haven't watched anything live in quite awhile. It saves a lot of time and eliminates sitting there watching something inane just because nothing better is on.

We have had one for a few years now. Aren't they great? We only record five or six things (top chef, top gear, bill moyers, graham norton among them) but at least we watch whatever we do on our schedule, and as you say, without commercials.

Hey, it's snowing down here.