The Year in Television 2007
It’s 2008! You know what that means, lots and lots of lists about various things that happened in 2007. You can add this one to the list of those lists.
January
The very popular show“24” started up again. What would Jack do this time? Who would he go after? Well it turned out that Jack did what he does best, which is shoot people, and it pretty much didn’t matter who it was. What else did we find out? We found out that Jack Bauer’s tears cause nuclear weapons to go off, and that after seeing that at the very beginning of the season, the show pretty much went down hill from there. I mean, how do you top that? Let’s hope 2008 is a better year for Jack.
February
With football season at an end, and the Superbowl right around the corner, most of the country found out that teams that didn’t come from either coast of the United States were about to be locked in battle. I speak of course, of “Survivor”. This go ‘round, they are in Fiji. In this all new “Survivor”, they sat around and complained about each other, ate really nasty things, and voted each other off the island, which was completely different every other “Survivor”.
America was further astonished to find out about two teams that are just over 200 miles away from each other, in mysterious places called “Illinois” and “Indiana”, and which reside someplace called the “Midwest”. Americans are even more surprised that these places have football, and that, somehow, they are both going to the Superbowl.
After getting over this whole “Midwest” thing, organizers logically held the Superbowl in Miami, Florida. Miami is basically very much like New York, except New York cab drivers are scared to drive there. Many, many people came to the Superbowl, and advertisers spent millions of dollars on ads. There was also a football game. The Indianapolis Colts won.
March
In March, a show about a bunch of people who have done terrible things and lie about it came on television. It looked like it was going to be a hit, until everyone realized it was just the presidential candidates starting up earlier than ever before.
Someone in Hollywood must have had the inside scoop on this, since they were able to create a show based around a similar set of circumstances, where people pretend to be someone else: “The Riches”. The show starred that great comedian Eddie Izzard, who creates great dramatic performances while still making things funny at times, all while not wearing a dress.
April
In April, shows that started in the Fall of 2006 were already starting to end. The shows “30 Rock” and “Studio 60” both started in the fall were each about late night comedy shows except that one was actually good, and lived through the entire season.
“The Sopranos” returned in April, and people were very anxious to see how, in just a couple of short months, Tony Soprano’s fate would be resolved in a nice uncomplicated and unambiguous way.
May
The season finale of “Lost” came in May, and as usual, everything that happened in the show was completely crystal clear. That is, if you wash your crystal with butter. After audiences had gotten used to seeing a lot of flashbacks, this time the writers turned things around and did a flash-forward. I look forward to the next season of Lost when they start doing flash-sideways.
A show called “On the Lot” debuted. It aimed to find the next Steven Spielberg, and it turns out that people were pretty much satisfied with the Steven Spielberg they already had and didn’t watch the show.
A nation was shocked to find out that Rosie O’Donnell was leaving “The View”. A nation asked, “That show is still on?”
June
People were very upset when “Jericho” was cancelled, and they decided to send CBS a message. After thousands of pounds of nuts were sent into CBS headquarters, the network said that they understood, and were going to take immediate action: They announced that Dan Rather was coming back. This announcement was short-lived when CBS realized that what people really wanted was Jericho back. CBS agreed, and later in the year said that it would be back in 2008. Dan Rather lobbied to be on “Jericho” as a newscaster, but executives thought it would be completely implausible.
“The Sopranos” ended, and someone thought it would be a good idea to end the show by abruptly going to black. Most of The Sopranos audience thought it would be a good idea to go see the writers of the last episode and abruptly make them black and blue.
Take a group of people, have them dress up funny, do strange tasks and pay the winner million dollars at the end. “Survivor”? No, unfortunately, it was “Pirate Master”, and it made its debut in June. To say this show stunk like Limburger cheese would be just mean and nasty to Limburger cheese.
July
CBS, hoping to appease the steaming, frothing mouths of “Jericho” fans, started rerunning the show in hopes it will buy the network some time until new shows can be produced.
Final episodes of the show “Drive” started to air. The show tried to be mysterious as “Lost”, except without the island, weird smoke monster, and the excitement.
August
“High School Musical 2” debuted, and thousands of teenagers fainted in all the excitement. Parents everywhere were bewildered how a musical could do that to today’s youth.
Bob Barker said goodbye to “Price is Right” after approximately one million years of hosting the show. He will be missed.
September
Millions of “Lost” fans started searching their dials for where “Lost” was. That answer: January 2008. The writers for the show struck a deal in which they could run all the shows back to back, without doing any reruns. Everyone seemed to be satisfied by this, and the only thing that could through a wrench in those plans would be a writer’s strike, which seemed HIGHLY unlikely.
A nation watched as Whoopi Goldberg joined “The View”. A nation asked, “I really wasn’t kidding last time, the show isn’t really still on is it?” A nation would be disappointed by the answer.
“Moonlight” premiered. This was a show about a brooding vampire that helps people instead of sucking their blood. This show was much better the first time around when it was called “Angel” and had different actors and characters.
Heroes season 2 debuted, but started somewhere in the middle of the story which confused the living heck out of people. Most of the new characters are interesting and include live versions of the Wonder Twins from the old Justice League cartoon. Instead of having the ability to morph into different objects, when their Wonder Twin powers give the brother the ability to make his sister stop crying, which is a good thing since her tears are black and kill people. Another new character seemed to have a mysterious stalking ability which he used on the cheerleader, Claire, but it was later revealed that was wrong. He could fly AND stalk her.
“Chuck” debuted. This show was about a clerk at a big box store that had all of the national intelligence secrets downloaded into his brain, leaving him a complete moron. Well, that’s want would happen if that were really true. What happened on the show was he, naturally, becomes a spy and helps the real spies thwart bad people from doing bad things, all while retaining his original job.
“The Office” debuted, and we finally found out that Jim and Pam were dating. Not in the open, (at least at first), but dating none the less.
October
Everyone was waiting for a new program people will be talking about all week after each show. That program was: “Cavemen”. The things people were saying were, “Urgh, Wurf, and Blech”. Those aren’t cavemen words either. Fortunately, by now most of those people have finished having their stomachs pumped, and are now able to watch regular programs again. They have, however, been asked to step away from any shows with the words “cave” or “men” in them.
“Big Bang Theory” was another new show, this one about a group of nerdy types that hang out with a girl that lives across the hall. The entire basis of this program was to show that making jokes about topics in nuclear physics, Greek philosophers, and chemistry was a completely untapped resource… and for a good reason. It was hard to tell which was more implausible, that people with high IQs could be so social unaware, or that the socially aware could have such low IQs.
“The Next Great American Band” was a show in search of the next great American band. There are many talented people on the show, just chomping at the bit for an opportunity to be taken to the cleaners by the record industry.
Drew Carey started on “Price is Right”, taking over from Bob Barker. Drew was on a lot of game shows this year, including the “The Power of 10”, “Whose Line is it Anyway”, and the newly announced, “The Power Price is 10 Right Lines Anyway”.
November
The Writer’s Strike started. The writers were trying to get a little more money for each DVD sold, and, horror of horrors, they want to get paid for programs that others were making millions from. With everyone in Hollywood making money on shows, it is hard to believe that the writers are usually the low people on the totem pole. Even the sewer cleaners in Hollywood advised the writers, “You really need to get a better contract”.
Having no new shows struck fear into the hearts of the Hollywood moguls, and they’ve already taken steps to deal with the strike. Most had already switched from lighting cigars with $100 bills to $20 bills.
What this meant was shows that should have been off the air sooner than they were (like “Cavemen”) stayed on longer than they should have.
December
Many TV shows came out on DVD in time for the Christmas season, and even TV shows that were made into movies and then put on to DVD, to later be put back onto TV after DVD sales die out. This includes “The Simpsons” Movie, which asks the question: What does a spiderpig do?
David Letterman made an end run around CBS which doesn’t actually own “Late Night with David Letterman”, and struck a deal with his writers to come back to work. The other late night shows are going to try and do this without writers, and we’ll just have to see how that’s going to turn out when they debut in 2008.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas over, and a lot of football still to play, most of the programs that have already gone into re-runs because of the writer’s strike have gone unnoticed, and probably will do so until the beginning of 2008 when people start to realize what a real horror this could all be. There is going to be a lot more reality programming headed our way, so be careful not to step in it.
