Under The N... 43
There’s something that’s been stuck in my head for a few days now… a thought that I just cannot seem to banish from my consciousness.
The ABC television network… a network with which I used to be professionally associated… announced that it's adding a bingo game to its prime time schedule. Yes, bingo. B-I-N-G-O.
Excuse me? Did I miss something? Exactly when did bingo become the stuff of which prime-time network television is made? Maybe if My Network TV had been the network to announce a weekly prime-time bingo contest, then I wouldn’t be shaking my head with quite the same fervor. But ABC? The network of quality, cutting-edge fare such as Lost and Desperate Housewives? The network that once gave us classics such as Barney Miller, The Wonder Years, Batman, Soap and NYPD Blue? The American Broadcasting Company?? THIS is the network which is now resorting to a prime-time telecast of something called National Bingo Night?
On one hand, maybe we should give ABC credit for attempting to program Friday nights with original fare. For several months now, the alphabet network has been meeting with producers, in search of low-cost, unscripted programming which could run on “the two nights of the week that HUT levels forgot” (those nights being Friday and Saturday).
On the other hand, however, the reality is that bingo is not the answer to ABC's prime-time woes. Come on - is a live bingo game REALLY better than reruns of Grey's Anatomy? Is bingo – long the domain of church basements and Indian-gaming reserves – really ready for prime time? Is it ready for television at all?
A bingo game would seem to hearken back to television’s earliest days, when innocent fare ruled the airwaves. And while these days it seems that everything old is new again (Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour lives on in the present-day incarnation of American Idol, and precious few shows on ABC are more popular than its ballroom-dancing showcase Dancing with the Stars… and we haven’t seen much TV dancing since American Bandstand and Dance Fever), as far as television is concerned, bingo is not new, and it's not old; it's simply a "never was"… and I think that it needs to stay that way.
I implore you, ABC - please leave my prime-time television free from the bingo cards and markers. If you need a bingo fix that badly, then I'll be happy to give you directions to Foxwoods. In fact, your first card is on me.
The ABC television network… a network with which I used to be professionally associated… announced that it's adding a bingo game to its prime time schedule. Yes, bingo. B-I-N-G-O.
Excuse me? Did I miss something? Exactly when did bingo become the stuff of which prime-time network television is made? Maybe if My Network TV had been the network to announce a weekly prime-time bingo contest, then I wouldn’t be shaking my head with quite the same fervor. But ABC? The network of quality, cutting-edge fare such as Lost and Desperate Housewives? The network that once gave us classics such as Barney Miller, The Wonder Years, Batman, Soap and NYPD Blue? The American Broadcasting Company?? THIS is the network which is now resorting to a prime-time telecast of something called National Bingo Night?
On one hand, maybe we should give ABC credit for attempting to program Friday nights with original fare. For several months now, the alphabet network has been meeting with producers, in search of low-cost, unscripted programming which could run on “the two nights of the week that HUT levels forgot” (those nights being Friday and Saturday).
On the other hand, however, the reality is that bingo is not the answer to ABC's prime-time woes. Come on - is a live bingo game REALLY better than reruns of Grey's Anatomy? Is bingo – long the domain of church basements and Indian-gaming reserves – really ready for prime time? Is it ready for television at all?
A bingo game would seem to hearken back to television’s earliest days, when innocent fare ruled the airwaves. And while these days it seems that everything old is new again (Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour lives on in the present-day incarnation of American Idol, and precious few shows on ABC are more popular than its ballroom-dancing showcase Dancing with the Stars… and we haven’t seen much TV dancing since American Bandstand and Dance Fever), as far as television is concerned, bingo is not new, and it's not old; it's simply a "never was"… and I think that it needs to stay that way.
I implore you, ABC - please leave my prime-time television free from the bingo cards and markers. If you need a bingo fix that badly, then I'll be happy to give you directions to Foxwoods. In fact, your first card is on me.
posted by TV Boy at 12:15 AM
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