TV features we can very well do without

Watching TV can be a pain sometimes, no thanks to the irritating features that some producers dote on, apparently because they think (oh, so wrongly!) that viewers go for them.

Topping our list of overplayed programming hands are all those shows about—sharks! They pretend to be scientifically-motivated, but all too soon it becomes clear that they just want to give us a great big scare, and thus compel our terrified viewership! Hey, it’s been decades since “Jaws,” so give the knee-jerk shock fest a long rest, why don’t you?

“Kissing cousins” to this are all those other fear-based shows about snakes, “monster” fishes, “Bigfoot” and fictitious, dangerous and/or poisonous creatures. Can’t we just forget about them for a decade or two, as well? There are so many topics worth discussing, why insist on playing these one-note sambas over and over again?

We also get ticked off by all those TV shows being produced these days about—cupcakes! Why is so much valuable time being devoted to cupcake tilts in which ferociously competitive bakers practically kill themselves and each other to come up with the most delectable, wee confection? Spare us, please, from TV concept people whose scope and creativity are as small as—cupcakes!

We also wonder why so many TV series and docus are so “down” on extraterrestrials, aliens and creatures from outer space. Invariably, they are characterized as evil and hell-bent on globe-gulping or exterminating all human beings so they can take over our planet.

This is such a spaced-out, knee-jerk notion. Why would any alien race want to take over our crazy, little planet, with all of its Kardashians, Honey Boo Boos, Real Housewives and nude newscasters? Why?

Wrong-headed

This inimical bias against other intelligent species and races in the universe isn’t just stupidly unselective, it could also be really wrong-headed: Quite a number of experts conjecture that, if extraterrestrials did exist and were able to make contact with the “lowly” human race, they would be so scientifically and ethically advanced that they would no longer have the need for war and conquest—and could in fact teach us how to “level up” to their far more enlightened state of being! Now, wouldn’t even the Kardashians groove to that?

Our other pet peeve on TV include all those “vanity” productions paid for by people with money, who love to go on-cam to promote their fat and fatuous selves, or to shill for a product or “alternative” medical process.

Some of those really yucky shows feature “hosts” who are so horribly inept that we watch them with the same weird and kinky fascination that we reserve for freaks, gargoyles, circus performers—and roadkill.

Finally, we’ve had it up to here with all of those “religious” groups who buy TV airtime not to make viewers feel more spiritual and become better people but to lash out at and vilify “competing” religious groups! How viciously vindictive can you get—and why is this vile conduct tolerated on TV, in a society that is supposed to uphold freedom of religion? Why, indeed?