2010
Random Rant: The Two Hour Dilemma
Listen, we love TV as much as the next person. Ok that is a lie, we love TV more than the next person. Lately, there has been this obnoxious trend by the major networks to make all of their popular shows last for two hours. The result, either we have to commit two hours of our life or TiVo space or not watch at all.
We continue our rant after the break
We would not mind the two hour episode if it wasn’t for the fact that the shows, such as the Biggest Loser or Dancing with the Stars, are not interesting in their second hour. Either it is a double episode, in which case they could be placed in a time slot at a later time/date, or they have a bunch of obnoxious filler, such as a live band performance or extra interviews with contestants that are just boring. I don’t want to know what Pam Anderson does in her spare time with her pet snake fluffy or watch the Biggest Loser contestants cry for another hour about their “process.” I want to attempt to have a life and this new trend is seriously impeding on this. Having to sit through two hours requires immense patience or a prescription for an ADD medication. We gain nothing in the second hour that we could not have had in the first hour, we are no longer interested in the show, and we just end up fast forwarding through most of it. We resent the networks for doing it and as a result we have dropped a lot of shows we would watch.
We understand the dilemma and we understand that it is hard for networks to compete nowadays. We also understand that this is a logical conclusion for most tv executives, the network executives have every right to believe that if we loved one hour of our favorite show, such as 24, that we would gladly stick around for the second. But seriously, do we really need a second hour of Lost or Grey’s or Law and Order: SVU. Answer no. We never see two hour episodes on Friday or Sunday, when we have time to sit through two hours of crap, we only see them on the weekdays and the days where you are faced with the inevitable reality that you will have to return to work again. We understand that one network is attempting to monopolize our time but unless we have a weekend and a new DVD set we don’t want to watch two hours of anything.
As a result, we have a dilemma, watch the two hours or give up. For some shows we have trudge through the second hours and for others we have just dropped the show entirely. Unless it is a premiere or an finale, two hours is not appropriate. The sooner the networks realize this, the better.
