Now for the bottom five shows. These are shows I watched and liked years ago, but now, for various reasons, the shows aren’t the same any more. Some of this is because of my last book–I’ve learned a lot and it’s changed my perspective. I expect better. Here they are, in no particular order:
Bottom Five:
Beauty and the Beast. When I originally watched this, I thought the show was fantastic. At the time this aired, there wasn’t much on TV like this for women. Women characters didn’t get a lot of action roles of any kind, and here, we had this character who hits the bad guys, which was a novelty. But it’s painfully dated. Though Catherine can defend herself, she still needs Vincent to rescue her.
MASH. After I came back from Desert Storm, watching MASH was not the same because a lot of it is true.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Action, submarines, monsters, underwater. I was a huge, huge fan of this show, and of one of the show’s stars. Yeah, yeah, I know it had a lot of bad monsters, but it was fun. Where it went adrift for me is that the producer was pretty sloppy. He’d kill off a character in scene 2 and bring the actor back in scene 4, figuring no one would notice. And there were an increasing number of these as the series progressed, and they were really obvious. What really did it for me though was a military officer two steps away from a flag repeatedly getting on an intercom to demand from the bad guys what they wanted with him.
Star Trek. Yes, the original series makes the list. I was a big fan of the show and was into Star Trek fandom. I went to many conventions and collecting Star Trek stuff. But when I watch the show now, I find it incredibly dated. Not the special effects, but the stories. They’re too preachy–and about subjects that are not the same any more.
Stingray. This is the one with Corvette Stingray, not the puppets. There are two excellent episodes–the one about the Indians, and the one in Vietnam. But the rest were … disappointing. All the elements that made it unique at the time–the music, the wheels–just feel like filler instead of actually adding anything.
Filed under: Just for Fun | Tagged: TV
