The Island of Dr. Mengele

I watch television.

I know, I know, just because TV is "cool media" doesn't mean watching it is cool. I don't care.

As a filmmaker and film student, you can believe my position isn't very popular, but I love television. I love it for the media it wants to be. And I love it for the media it almost is.

Film has one distinct inherent advantage. Viewed in its natural habitat, films enable a more effective sensory assault. Theaters are insulated from extraneous lights and sound, they effectively prohibit distractions or multitasking. Theater projected films do not beg for the audience's attention, they demand it. Television viewing (as well as home movie viewing), on the other hand, typically occurs in a far different environment. Most people who watch television are also engaged in other activities, whether they be cooking, eating, conversing, paying bills, etc.

Once that obstacle is successfully navigated, television will become the superior medium. TV programs have already transitioned to higher definitions and more superior widescreen ratios. In the past, movie ticket revenue has allowed film production budgets to soar far above their freely broadcast boob-tube counterparts. Today, cable and premium subscription networks (i.e. FX, HBO), as well as increased ad revenue, allow television programs to greatly enhance their production capabilities.

I don't really want to dive fully into my thesis, but television shares many of film's pluses while negating most of its minuses (for example: TV is produced quicker, thus it can afford to be more topical; the episodic nature of television allows greater story development and characterization).

I truly believe television will one day become the best storytelling medium. I keep watching TV, eager and ready to document its inevitable supremacy. Unfortunately, it still mostly sucks.

I'm going to start giving my loyal readers a lowdown on the TV I'm consuming (with the exception of sports and news programming), starting first with the very worst:

9) The Island (Real World/Road Rules Challenge): If reality television is terrible by definition, "The Island" is the worst of a bad genre. Nevertheless, there's something compelling about watching entitled brats in their mid-twenties backstabbing their pals, hoping to extend their "15 minutes" ever so briefly. Honestly, it's the closest thing we have to Battle Royale.

The show is a joke, but its implications are tangible. People more socially conscious than I might have problems with the casting and portrayal of these young adults. No, I'm not talking about those beautiful bouncing bikini-clad blobs of silicon. Those are awesome. Everyone likes fake boobs and every TV show has an attractive cast, no issue there.

Isn't there a deeper problem, though, when MTV sends 20 young Americans to an island and only three of them are white? In this day and age, really? What the fuck? There are two Latina women who, thus far, serve only as arm candy to the "main" characters. And then there's The Black Man. Tyrie is literally given zero screen time in the first four episodes before finally being featured in the fifth before his sudden elimination.

Thankfully, I'm not burdened with the aforementioned social conscience. I tune in for chicks making out and the hilarious misogyny of the drunken frat boys.

Up next: "The Fringe," a wildly uneven "X-Files" derivation.