Please, tell me this is a joke....

[Chris James]

I have said many times that I don't watch television, there is little there I want to see. But of course there are things in the news I might look at if I read about them online first...this is not one of them:

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=829902

I know little about this program and from what I do know I can't imagine ever watching it. What is the attraction? Are these people rednecks from hell or what? I do not imagine there is any intelligent reason to see this program but it seems popular. Can anyone explain that?

What does bother me is that there are a lot of very good authors out there who would like to get published, and now we have one of the foremost publishing houses printing books about this nonsense. Maybe I don't drink enough beer, smoke enough pot, or kill enough animals to appreciate this kind of programming. Thank Goodness for that.

[The Pecman]

There's a lotta really awful shows out there -- I know, I've worked on a few -- but there's also quite a few really great shows that are profound, moving, emotional, and very complex. I think Sturgeon's Law still applies: even if 97% of everything out there is crap, there's still a small percentage of great shows that you probably should watch.

The shows I usually cite as being among the best TV done in the past decade would include Breaking Bad (which just ended its incredible 6-year run), Downton Abbey, The Sopranos, Lost, The West Wing, Queer as Folk, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Mad Men, all of which are as brilliant and enthralling as any novels I've read during the same period. All great, significant shows that deserve your time.

The other 97%... not so much.