Last night I had a glimpse of the future. We were watching the hockey game in a sports bar that had a TV everywhere you looked (we actually had our own TV on our table). Unfortunately, by some mystery of the satellite gods, not all the TVs were in sync. Some of the TVs were broadcasting the game with a few seconds delay from other TVs. At times, the delay was up to five seconds. Of course our TV was behind, and the table next to us had the current version.
You’d think this wouldn’t be a big deal. But we’re not watching Oprah. This is hockey. When the home team scores, the place goes nuts. So we’re watching and suddenly the guy in the table next to us starts cheering. I look up from potato skin to my five-second delayed TV and see a perfect pass, shot, and goal. Exactly five seconds after the first cheer, another cheer erupts across the bar. Then we all exchange odd glances at what just happened. It’s a cheap way to travel in time.
So while we were watching hockey last night, we effectively saw the future. We knew when the Wild would score before they actually scored. In overtime we knew when it was over before it was actually over. I wouldn’t say knowing the outcome ruined the game, but it certainly changed the dynamic. You end up not waiting for life to happen, but waiting for what you know to come to pass. It’s a bit disconcerting.
I think MTV is really just one big commercial. It seems like the entire network exists to sell stuff. Maybe that’s a little naive. Don’t all TV networks exist to sell stuff? Well, first they want to make money, but they do that by selling ads, which is selling stuff. It just seems like MTV is so not subtle about it. An hour-long special about Lord of the Rings. Translation: Go spend money on the movie. TRL, every day. Translation: Go buy the albums that everybody else likes because we’ve played the song so much it’s stuck in your head. If you ever want to see how out of touch with society Christians are, go read a Christian magazine for teens (any will do, they’re all pretty much the same), and then watch MTV. Now the oozing sex is the first obvious difference, and I’m not saying Campus Life needs more skanky cover shots of Gwen Stefani’s chest. I’m just saying you’ll notice a major difference in the savyness of Campus Life vs. MTV. The battle’s already over on that one. Too bad, it appears Stefani’s chest wins.
Last week the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association aired a commercial on network TV (you can watch it here). I don’t remember another time when a religious organization has advertised on network TV. I’ve seen a few commercials for local churches on local TV, and we’ve all see the Mormon commercials–but none of those have been on network TV. This was a first. It was also extremely timely. Three years ago the BGEA tried to run these commercials, and all the networks rejected them. This time around, the networks were eager to run the commercials.
That’s the basic story. Now I have a lot of questions. There’s been an extremely mixed response to the commercial. Some people think it’s great. Some people think it’s horrible. So what is an appropriate commercial for Christians to put on network TV? Should it lay out the gospel message in 30 seconds? Should it just point people toward more resources? Should it simply plant an idea in people’s heads?
How come the people on TV are so much cooler than me? When I was in high school I never felt as old or as cool as the people who were playing the high school roles on TV shows and movies. Now that I’m a senior in college I still don’t feel as old or as cool as the people playing those same high school roles. I never had that much style, I never had that much attitude, I never had that much facial hair. And frankly, no one else at my high school did either.
I usually don’t promote a lot of TV shows and stuff like that in my ponderings, but today I’m going to make an exception. This Saturday, July 8 at 8 PM (Eastern) NBC is having a three hour ‘Freaks and Geeks’ marathon. If you haven’t seen this show, it’s a comedy/drama about the freaks and geeks in a Michigan high school in 1980. It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in a while, and NBC cancelled it before the season was out. They’re showing the unaired episodes Saturday. The show has some of the most realistic dialogue and situations on TV. It captures high school really well, and not just the jock and cheerleader view.
I’ve always thought that TV shows lately have been pretty crummy, to put it nicely. Most network TV shows aren’t very clean, and for some reason sex is the topic of every sitcom. There are few shows out there that I’ll actually watch, The Simpsons being one of them, but I’ll save that for another day. Tonight I found another quality show: Touched By An Angel. When you only have four channels, you tend to watch whatever’s on. While washing my dishes I turned on CBS and watched this show. Now I’ve heard a lot about this show. I always thought it was some watered down network attempt to tap into that wealthy Christian audience. Just trying to suck some more money out of wherever they could with a soapy clean show featuring angels. The Christians will love it, and we’ll make some money. Of course I don’t know if that speculation is true or not, but I now know something about the show. It is not a watered down, feel good TV show. It expresses the truth of the gospel. On prime time, network TV I actually heard the Bible being quoted, and it wasn’t by some psycho murderer about to gun down half a dozen people. The truth of Christianity was being preached, and not in any hoaky, lame manner. It was good. My hat goes off to the producers of this show, along with my apologies for being so skeptical.