A letter to Television

Dear TV,

I'm a little mad at you right now, and I think I owe it to us both to share my feelings now before things get out of hand. We have always communicated so well together, and I don't want to throw that all away.

In the last few years, you have been changing and I don't think it's been for the better. I think you know what I'm talking about: Shortened Seasons. When I was a kid, your Seasons lasted at least twenty two if not twenty five full episodes! You provided us with new episodes of our favorite shows from early fall all the way to early summer. Sometimes the season premiere would show before we were even back to school! Those were the Golden Years (not the show, but the actual years). But a dark shadow has fallen over your programing lately. It's been getting bad for a while now, but it's gotten so bad lately that I feel I must say something. Let's take a look at what I'm talking about:

Scrubs: this is a prefect example. Season 4 was 25 episodes. Season 5 was 24 episodes. Season 6 was only 21 episodes and rumor is that Season 7 (which will be the last season ever) is only going to be 19 episodes. If that doesn't map the decline of your programing, I don't know what does.

South Park: one of my favorite shows. Seasons 1-7 ranged from a respectable 18 to 15, but Seasons 8-11 have been 14 episodes. Fourteen. If that show was a child, it wouldn't even make it to High School.

Freaks and Geeks: this was a double whammy - we only got one season before it was dropped, but the only season ever filmed was onlly 8 episodes! I mean, in the cast you get Linda Cardellini (Sam on ER), Busy Phillips (Hope on ER), Seth Rogan, Martin Starr (the dude with the beard on Knocked Up), John Frances Daily (he's on Bones now), Jason Segel (Marshall on How I Met Your Mother), and a ton of others! But we only get one season of 18 episodes? Not cool, TV: not cool.

The IT Crowd: now, I know it's from the UK, but there are only 2 seasons with 6 episodes each. Six! That's a quarter of a season. Why even show up?

The Office (UK): this has the same problem as above. The US version had a 6-episode first season, but since then it's held on to the 22-24 episode standard. The UK version, however, has 6 in season one, 6 in season two, and TWO EPISODES in season 3! Season 3 was only one extra-long episode split into two pieces and it was a Christmas Special, but why call it a season?!

The Sarah Silverman Program: given the number of episodes, you'd think it's British even though it's a Comedy Central program. Two seasons, 6 episodes each. I don't even have the energy to talk about this one.

And now we have the Writers Strike to deal with. The commercials for this coming Thursday night almost make me cry. "All new My Name Is Earl! All new 30 Rock! the office and All New Scrubs!" Once the rest of those shows run out of pre-filmed episodes, what's going to happen? In January when Heroes and Jeopardy! run out of new shows and the riots begin, what's going to happen? If you steal episodes of The Office and other shows that aren't filming during the strike, are you going to extend this Season into the summer and make up the missing episodes for us? I seriously doubt it. I'm guessing we'll have even shorter Seasons. So shows like The Sarah Silverman Program might have two episodes this Season. If we're lucky.

So here's the deal: consider this an Intervention. I care about you too much to sit back and watch you destroy almost 80 years of work. Let's work together to get past this, and I know we'll have an even stronger relationship then before. I don't want to turn my back on you, but I can't be part of this self-destruction either.

I miss you, TV, and I can't wait until you are back to normal.

Sincerely,
Chris