Mal, I junked my TV 20 years ago. The quality of TV programming is not what it was in the 50, 60, and even the 70s.
Shows like I Love Lucy, MASH, and Twilight Zone will still be around in 50 years. But we wont be keeping up with the Kardasians for much longer.
I cannot blame you for junking TV, it is indeed a wasteland. However, we are in something of a golden age right now and there is actually some amazing isolated nuggets that are WELL worth watching.
Call this an experiment. Trust me, watch the first season of Breaking Bad - it's only 7 episodes, cut short by a Writer's Guild strike. Bryan Cranston won Best Dramatic Actor Emmy for this show three times in a row and four times total, and he won his first Emmy with the scream he belts out at the end of Episode 6. He woulda won a fifth Emmy but they stretched the timing of the show out in a way that made him ineligible one year. Breaking Bad is widely recognized as arguably The Best Television Drama Ever Made and I am not exagerating when I say it has the emotional depth of Hamlet or King Lear by Shakespeare.
Don't take my word for it. Lots of critics out there say the same thing. Here's what Forbes had to say in the final weeks of BB after its six year run:
"Twenty three minutes into Episode 514, entitled “Ozymandias” after a Shelley poem, Breaking Bad made television history....Sometime around that first commercial break, Breaking Bad broke away from the pack and staked its claim to the title of television’s Best Show Ever....
...we’ll be covering our eyes as we watch these last two episodes.
Why does it all matter?
It matters because television finally has a great drama that makes no excuses. Breaking Bad seems destined to end with as much power and majesty as it had during any of its season-ending/season-opening cliffhangers. The water cooler conversation after the finale airs on September 29 will be dominated not by head- scratching analysis, but by slack-jawed awe."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/allenstjohn/2013/09/16/why-breaking-bad-is-the-best-show-ever-and-why-that-matters/Give BB a try. I'll bet 100 Crypti you binge watch it just like millions of others did to get ready for its final season.
Heck, you can watch the extended version of the Breaking Bad pilot episode 1 (originally aired with no commercials and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for the extra scenes) right here right now:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xm12aj_1x01-pilot_shortfilmsI Love Lucy, MASH, and Twilight Zone will still be around in 50 years. Breaking Bad will be passed down for thousands of years as an American Tragedy just as much as any Greek Tragedy has spent thousands of years getting to us.