Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So just been reading the thread about Red Dwarf, when it struck me....

Some bugger has been messing up Weekend Television good and proper. What the hell man? Seriously, apart from my favourite Dr Who, the rest is all insipid wimmin pleasing tripe, like Strictly Come Poncing About, Andrew Lloyd Gitfaces latest 3 month show advert, Poncing about on Ice, not to mention the likes of Britain's Got Morons.

What exactly is a young man meant to watch these days? Decent Saturday films are a thing of the past, and there does seem to be some conspiracy to force straight males off the couch and into the pub. What happened to stuff like The A-Team, Starsky and Hutch etc? When exactly did Television go all poofy??

And don't get me started on Big sodding Brother. Broadcast 24 hours a day. Why? What's the sodding point? It's X number of fame hungry wannabes acting the gakker to the camera in the vague hope some 'lads mag' will pay the skanky tart to whip her baps out before disappearing into relative obscurity. The talent show format could be so good, perhaps an annual Battle Of The Bands, but no. We get hours after hour of talentless idiots cluttering up our screens, refusing to go away. Well, not refusing to go away as such, not until we've been blackmailed into voting for the least irritating attention seeker, in the hope others will see sense and vote against this weeks idiot of choice.

Seriously, it's ruined a 'good night in' by making Television utterly unwatchable, hence I go to the pub so often to be skillfully seperated from my money by those behind the Bar!

Something has to be done, surely?

Take up a hobby like wargaming. That way you can spend the evening crouched in the corner squinting under the galre of an angle poise lamp while your better half watches tosh on the T.V.

What I hoping they are going to do on Big Brother this year is once all the contestants are in the house, very quitly turn off all the cameras and leave.
See how long before they either notice or starve to death.

I'd prefer them to go balls to wall with Running Man style exploding collars. Get voted out, and you get voted out....OF LIFE! KABOOM!

Now that I would watch!

It would only feed their ego. And if you keep doing that they will explode soon with out collars.

So it's a win/win situation.

Either that or kick it old school with a tank full of Sharks and a booby trapped lift ala James Bond. Or indeed just a house rigged with James Bond Villain style personnel removal devices. Or just do a Cube.

Some of the ITV Freeview channels have back-to-back The Prisoner and the Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock Holmes.

Kilkrazy wrote:Some of the ITV Freeview channels have back-to-back The Prisoner and the Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock Holmes.

+1 - Jeremy Brett is God

As to Mad Dok's point about man shows, it'll be interesting to see if the current trend for revitalising good old 80s style action in the cinema crosses over to the small screen. Although maybe 24 has already been there...

Simply put, they're not interested in pleasing young men on the weekends. The demographics for TV networks here in the States have shown that the audiences that would be drawn in by shows aimed at young men are far more likely to be out getting friggin' smashed or playing console games during the timeslots they'd aim to have shows like that on.

It's why USA Network has moved a lot of their programming from Sunday and Friday nights to Tuesdays+Wednesdays, with Thursday's programming being left alone.

Kanluwen wrote:Simply put, they're not interested in pleasing young men on the weekends.

So, in that sense they're like hookers?

Television = Fail.

Heaps of Terry Pratchett Books on Audio- good to paint with story in B/ground

Hookers will please you anytime, baby.

So long as you pay and abide by the "no kissing" rule.

I always figured weekends were like adult swim at the community pool. No one under 18 allowed.

@MDG - You COULD always just watch Total Wipeout....

Here's the answer: Tune in to Dave. Top Gear all day, every day.

Top Gear all day every day is not a good thing. Dave have saved thier souls however by putting in plenty of QI.
There does seem to be a worrying sideeffect of this though. Jeremy Clarkson seems to have started leaching and can now been found in QI as well as sandwhiching it, a worrying trend.

Alternatively, dvds are awesome.

I can suggest some shows from here in the States that are completely worth watching. Burn Notice and Psych immediately spring to mind.

Thing is, all the shows I'm interested in get bummed away at the crap end of the schedules, and then dropped because rather predictably, nobody watched them!

Grrr, it boils me blood so it does says I!

Create some puppets of your favorite characters and re-enact your favorite Dr. Who episodes using puppetry, your imagination, and a detaching sense of reality.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Thing is, all the shows I'm interested in get bummed away at the crap end of the schedules, and then dropped because rather predictably, nobody watched them!

Grrr, it boils me blood so it does says I!

Trust me. Start on Burn Notice and Psych.

Burn Notice is a kind of cross between MacGyver and the Bourne series.
Psych is based on the entire premise of "What if you were a private detective who convinced the cops he was a psychic?"...and does it amazingly.

Saturday night television has been rubbish for years and years.

Here in the States, Saturday nights aren't too bad.

We get Doctor Who at 9pm EST on BBC America, River Monsters(guy named Jeremy Wade goes to all the major fishing spots on the planet and tries to catch the big, almost mythical fish that make the newspaper every so often) at 10pm on Animal Planet, and lastly we get SyFy Channel's Saturday Night Movie.

Which consists of such gems as "Megashark versus Giant Octopus", which opened with a giant honkin' shark eating a 747 after leaping from the ocean to 35,000 feet.

Kanluwen wrote:Here in the States, Saturday nights aren't too bad.

We get Doctor Who at 9pm EST on BBC America, River Monsters(guy named Jeremy Wade goes to all the major fishing spots on the planet and tries to catch the big, almost mythical fish that make the newspaper every so often) at 10pm on Animal Planet, and lastly we get SyFy Channel's Saturday Night Movie.

Which consists of such gems as "Megashark versus Giant Octopus", which opened with a giant honkin' shark eating a 747 after leaping from the ocean to 35,000 feet.

Isn't 85 percent of the Sci-Fi channel pretty much about the same thing, sans when they show Star Trek, SG-1, and a few other critically acclaimed shows they didn't produce?

Wait if you're a young male shouldn't you be screaming into your headset at someone while playing an FPS on playstation/Xbox?

If you are married with kids, you know you can vicariously do this by loading up the rum and having some father/son "guy time." He plays and uberpwons while you watch-'cause you'd suck anyway and that water glass full of rum is not going to help the old reflexes any'...

WarOne wrote:
Isn't 85 percent of the Sci-Fi channel pretty much about the same thing, sans when they show Star Trek, SG-1, and a few other critically acclaimed shows they didn't produce?

Depends on what you're talking about.

Destination Truth/Ghost Hunters and its spin-offs do amazingly well for their time-slots, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Stargate: Universe, and their upcoming "Haven" and "Fact or Faked?" looking like they'll be big hits.

WarOne wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Which consists of such gems as "Megashark versus Giant Octopus", which opened with a giant honkin' shark eating a 747 after leaping from the ocean to 35,000 feet.

Wow, I missed the start of that gem. SciFi a.k.a. SyFy should relize that there straight to video movies; not dvd or blue ray thats right video; are not going to boost their rating. I sware that they are worse than the Skin-a-Max movies minus the oh so wonderful boob shots every fifteen seconds.

And yet, they get some of their highest spikes in TV viewing on Saturdays...

Clearly, someone's interested in watching their terrible movies.

Frazzled wrote:If you are married with kids, you know you can vicariously do this by loading up the rum and having some father/son "guy time." He plays and uberpwons while you watch-'cause you'd suck anyway and that water glass full of rum is not going to help the old reflexes any'...

Ahhh the life of an old fart....

I don't think I watch TV on Saturday.

Netflix streaming video has saved me from boring TV.... blessed art thou, blu-ray player.

Hey at least I can comment on the guns.

Pipboy101 wrote:Wow, I missed the start of that gem. SciFi a.k.a. SyFy should relize that there straight to video movies; not dvd or blue ray thats right video; are not going to boost their rating. I sware that they are worse than the Skin-a-Max movies minus the oh so wonderful boob shots every fifteen seconds.

They fail to realize they ruin their own brand with that garbage. Those movies do nothing but hurt their few good programs. Battlestar Galactica was a great example.

Battlestar Galactica ruined itself.

The movies do absolutely nothing outside of make them "that channel with the ridiculous Saturday movies".