Who destroyed quality television?

The other night, I sat down to watch some TV and reruns of "The West Wing" were on. I started watching only because I realized that absolutely nothing else was on. Yes, there are about 70 channels on cable, but honestly, nothing else was on (unless you call the upcoming Britney Spears reality series and the three million CSI shows a worthy option). \nI want to watch some original, high-quality drama or an enjoyable comedy or a memorable television special. These days, "high quality" actually means CSI moves to a bigger city. "Enjoyable comedies" are when girls slap each other silly on "Battle of the Sexes." "Memorable specials" are when the winner of Survivor is picked in front of a live audience. I can't understand why television has begun to already ruin our lives.\nThe first four editions of Survivor were good and I used to like the original Law & Order series. But now when you turn on the TV and "The Real World 48: On the Moon," "CSI: Bloomington" and "Law & Order: McNutt Judicial Board" are being aired as mid-season replacements, there's something wrong. \nThe professor of one of my telecommunications classes said that reality television is easy to produce and cast, therefore the entertainment industry has less desire to fund a costly, fictional show. So wouldn't you want to save money? Sure, but if "Who's Your Daddy", about an adopted kid trying to find his birth father, finds time on the airwaves, I think we should all harvest our organs for money to give to the networks. Please, take my kidney if it will help create new and original programming.\nGood shows from the golden age of the 90's like "ER," "Friends," "Seinfeld" and "NYPD Blue" were such big audience pullers that networks this year think any show with less than 15 million viewers is considered a failure. As a result of this plague, my favorite 'non-real' shows like "Alias", "24" and "The Sopranos" are barely surviving the black hole of reality. They cost money to produce but there are many times when I do not feel like watching "American Idol" on two, sometimes three or even all seven, nights a week.\nAn acclaimed professor of forensic science said that crime scene-type shows are very unrealistic. This leads us to conclude that the American population generally likes 'real' shows as well as shows that aren't even close to being realistic. Two different ends of the spectrum yet both equally awful and unoriginal. So many people are just mindlessly sucked into formula shows. I simply cannot comprehend what is so great about them. I would go as far to say that I would encourage everyone to take their televisions and throw them off the roof.\nI thank the stars for some of this year's original breakout, non-reality hits like "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy," and the return of "Family Guy." This morning, I saw on CNN that the fourth "Law & Order" series had been cancelled and that the reality-TV genre was on the decline. All of that combined, I am beginning to feel the destruction of the universe is slowing down a bit.\nI can only say that I'm thankful for the concept of television shows on DVD. I can watch reruns of "The Simpsons" and "Friends" without even looking at TV Guide. To my best friends and roommates, we are disconnecting our cable and we can only watch TV shows on DVD from now on. I prefer re-runs over garbage.