Do they have commercials around the show or product placement in some way?
If it goes out on BBC, no. They're government owned (or something like that, I don't quite understand the BBC's funding besides that I have to pay £120 a year to have a bloody TV because of them) so they don't have adverts. The other channels do carry adverts though.
Seems quite a bit over the top to put kindergarteners in game shows on tv. Doesn't seem like that much of a leap from those yucky beauty pageants they have in the states.
I definitely agree with this guy's assessment that TV is like "visual junk food"- we don't need to get rid of it completely, but it should be an occasional thing, not an every day thing. My family has about three or four TV shows AT MOST at any given time that we watch regularly- which is only about 3 hours of TV per week, which isn't that bad. We spend most of our free time doing things like reading or playing outside or studying (and I don't know about you, but for me that's fun!). Most importantly, though, kids should be outside more. It's astonishing and sad that many parents now a days think it's bad for their kids to get a little dirty, never take them out into nature, don't teach them about the natural world, etc. There are kids out there, even up into high school, who still think a whale is a fish and a salamander is a lizard. Not to mention the fact that, without going outdoors, it's virtually impossible for kids to get exercise, AND it increases the likelihood that they will develop an allergy! (you have to have been exposed to something to develop the proper bodily response, so kids who play outdoors are less likely to have allergies later in life).
I probably watch TV for a maximum of about 6 hours a week (and thats really pushing it - I do like Jeremy Kyle and Corrie when I can be bothered though, they're my guilty pleasures :sshh tell no-one
. There's just nothing on I find interesting; I like documentaries but thats about it. I use the TV for gaming and for DVDs - it seems odd to me to sit in front of television programming, even with my NT partner (who does kinda like crap TV, although she's growing out of it after over 2.5 years with me). If we're bored, we say "fancy a DVD?", not "lets see whats on the telly". I used to watch Fairly Odd Parents a lot but I don't think I get Nickoldeon on Freeview, Virgin Media isn't in my block of flats and I refuse to give Rupert Murdoch any more money.
I
hate reality TV shows though - I mean Big Brother was an interesting concept and I watched the first series, but really... do I want to watch D-list celebrities hoping that maybe they can get another record deal? Or some non-descript bimbo who wants to present a soft porn TV channel as a career? Or someone eating kangaroo testicles for a pack of rice? Its stupid - I remember when we used to have things like Tarrant on TV where we'd laugh at these messed up Japanese-style game shows where contestants would have vomit dropped on them or do things that were really painful... now we get celebrities to do pretty much the same and then talk about it the next day at work.
Its a shame because I was typing "I wouldn't let my kids watch TV" there, then erased it... because chances are, you probably would have to let your kids watch a little TV just so they don't get crap at school because they don't watch Skins or anything 'trendy' like that. I don't watch The L Word (because its sh*t) and when I was single, and trying to date, it was like I was this complete weirdo because I didn't know who Shane was, I didn't aspire to be her, I didn't have the hots for her... and so on and so forth. When I was a kid I had one of those little mock laptop things that had cartridges you loaded in and you could 'play' educational games, like reading, and numeracy (Vtech do something similar now). I did like TV but I loved things like David the Gnome (in case anyone doesn't know it/remember it, it kind of educated kids about the forests etc, and had a bit of fantasy through it). I'd do that for my kids as opposed to sticking them in front of the TV.
I heard that the L Word was a pretty dire sort of show.
Its like Desperate Housewives meets Sex and the City with lesbians *yawn*
Yep, that's dire all right. I didn't like Sex in The City and had only watched one episode of Desperate Housewives and it seemed not too bad.