More like Must Flee TV

I missed it last night, and I'm thinking I'm not sorry I did. The Learning Channel which has brought so much knowledge to so many for so long has, in my opinion (perhaps only), declined precipitously in terms of stimulating the grey matter.

Remember when Republicans used to use them as the example for why the government could cut PBS loose from taxpayers' dollars? Misty, water-colored memories. Quite frankly, I'm not sure they're even trying anymore.

After all it's TLC who are the goobers with the TV show, Toddlers and Tiaras, about child beauty pageant contestants which is a vaguely oxymoronic description in the first place (who doesn't think her/his child is beautiful? Can you imagine the size of the 'Lost & Found' at the hospitals around the world if we let parents leave ugly babies behind before heading home?).

But just around the time the Algonquin Roundtable was overcoming its mute shock at that piece of video verite, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (that's what it's called) who/which is something even I, in a fever dream, could not have imagined.

But if you don't keep moving ahead, you fall behind-be it in the arts, sciences, pro wrestling or schlock TV business (and I thought chiller was just about the dopiest of all the cable channels; silly me) and TLC stands for nothing else these days if not Opposed To Stasis (the initials don't line up but their viewers don't care) as last night, possibly in an attempt to keep me up past my bedtime (but not on a school night!) they unveiled Best Funeral Ever.

I don't think it's possible to do gooder than this and I'm very sure 'gooder' is a word that's supposed to be used in this context for just this proposition. In one of the most judiciously worded critiques of a program you will read anywhere, the critic at Media Life Magazine, whose existence is predicated on the dollars broadcasters and cable operators like TLC spend for on-line advertising, pulls every punch with the heaviest weight gloves possible and you can still read between the lines.

You know the folks who invented TiVo are hanging themselves even as DVR units across the country are being set to record this because words fail. I am already looking forward to TLC having enough episodes in the larder to have a holiday marathon though I'm not sure Dia de Muertos is yet on the Hallmark horizon.

Imagine what the ratings could look like if one of the former denizens of Jersey Shore or the Real Housewives of Anyplace were to be interred. Of course, it would cost a fortune in soundproofing to muffle the screams from the casket, but only until they run out of air.
-bill kenny