Hand me the remote

Personally, I am glad that I had a ridiculous amount of homework to do this semester, for it rendered me unable to watch any TV. While I'm not about to accuse the television of being a bastion of intellectualism, it at least provided us with decent entertainment back in the day.\nI'm talking about an era where you could watch episodes of "ALF," "Cheers," "Who's The Boss?," "Night Court," "MacGyver," "Mr. Belvedere" and "The Golden Girls" during any given week. Now, in the modern era, such quality programs are few and far between. (OK, so "The Golden Girls" was terrible, but just forget that for the sake of this argument).\nMany experts (i.e. people who watch TV in lieu of attending class) believe that the end of "Seinfeld" was the end of TV as we know it. Based on the careers of many of the shows stars after it went off the air, this is a logical conclusion. The number of episodes that Michael Richards and Jason Alexander's sitcom vehicles aired could probably be counted on one hand after a farm accident. As some of network TV's greatest stars have faded, so has network TV itself.\nOne major issue is the fact that there is an entire network that is a sham, which is UPN. The highest rated program on the network is WWF "Smackdown!," which gives our culture such insightful lines as, "Can you smell what the Rock is cookin'?"\nYes, I can smell him cooking the entire survival of the UPN network, and it smells like the can of sardines that I left open in my refrigerator during Thanksgiving break.\nAnd even though I have not watched wrestling since the Bushwhackers were Tag Team champs, I must admit that "Smackdown!" has the best script writing on the entire network. \nAnother problem is that quality programs are frequently cancelled. If they do not gain a strong foothold with an audience right away, they will not succeed. Some fairly recent examples of this type are "Sports Night," "The Critic" and "Freaks and Geeks." All were critically acclaimed. And it's no coincidence that they can be seen on cable in rerun form.\nSo what is responsible for my utter lack of interest? So-called "reality-based" shows that have gained an enormous amount of interest from the general public. How the moniker "reality-based" was applied to these shows I will never know, since the chances of being stuck on a desert island are about as good as the chance of the Cubs winning the World Series, the Hoosiers winning the Rose Bowl and Janet Reno posing for a centerfold in the same year.\nInitially, I thought that Fox could not top "Temptation Island" for the annual award for the World's Biggest Descent into Pure Drivel. But they have outdone themselves with the stellar sequel "Temptation Island 2" and the equally comparable dung-fest called "Love Cruise: The Maiden Voyage." The shows build on a tradition Fox mastered in quality programs like "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" and "When Animals Attack 7."\nIf a bunch of hot people trying to seduce couples isn't realistic, I don't know what is.\nIn fact, I contacted Fox head Rupert Murdoch to see if I could visit Temptation Island to interview some of the seductresses myself. It looked like it would work out but the plan fell through when Murdoch realized that a) I actually forged my press pass at Kinko's and b) he doesn't own the IDS, and therefore wouldn't be able to make any money off of the story.\nAs much as I would like to continue this rambling discussion, I have to go now. Springer's on.