MAKE IT WORK (ON MULTIPLE CHANNELS)

There used to be a time when television meant ABC, NBC, and CBS.  If you were really desperate, you could sit through PBS (pre-Sesame Street, of course).  If you had tin foil and a roof antenna, you could pick up some UHF stations, which in our area meant channels 25, 38, and 56.  In addition to such network shows as The Monkees, Mod Squad, Marcus Welby,, Wide World of Sports, and Medical Center, we could supplement our bored viewing with the extra UHF stations' fare of Creature Double Feature, Willie Whistle, local Boston sports (Bruins and Red Sox), and a continuous feed of Star Trek.

If you didn't care for the offerings,or, even worse, if you missed an episode of your favorite show, you were shit out of luck.

When cable came along (at $8 a month ... let that sink in for a moment ... $8 per MONTH), television became a place to watch semi-current movies.  Unfortunately, that often meant repeat after repeat after repeat of Willie Nelson's Honeysuckle Rose.  If I never again hear Amy Irving talking about how she is "haired over," I might be able to eventually recover from the trauma of awkwardness associated with that one fateful line.

As cable television companies became richer at our expense, TV choices became richer for us at their expense.  Starting with MTV's reality series, cable stations started to create their own programming.  It took a few decades, but the television fare suddenly became competitive.

Yes, kids, there really was a time when we really could say, "There's nothing on television."  But now with hundreds of channels, dozens of which produce their own programming,  there's always something on we can watch.

It's amazing to me that I can watch anything from the Hallmark channel (tame fare) to Starz original programming (often borderline pornographic) to Cartoon Network to Home and Garden TV.  Sports exist twenty-four hours a day in Cable Land, and one can almost always find a re-run of Law and Order.  I am totally psyched about the fact that I can watch Income Property, Say Yes to the Dress, Wicked Tuna, and round-the-clock weather updates all day and all night long. 

It truly is an amazing time to be a television watcher.

Even better, the progression of special effects and the ability to create computer-generated characters could very well mean the end of Hollywood all together, which, to be honest, would not break my heart.  Imagine how much more California real estate will be available when Kim Kardashian's ass is no longer taking up acres of space, or when the Jolie-Pitt family stops having babies because no one is paying them tens of millions of dollars to pretend they can act, or when Michael Moore can no longer set up shop inside the Hollywood McDonald's because he's just another obese charlatan on his way to a heart attack.

People today don't know how lucky they have it.  Cable may be expensive (it's hardly $8 anymore), but spending hours and hours with our televisions is no longer taboo.  Being stingy New Englanders, it's all about getting our money's worth, even if it means watching and re-watching episodes of Project Runway.  After all, if Tim Gunn can "Make it work," we should be able to do the same, and now we have choices to do so.