I watch a lot of TV. This kind of goes hand in hand with all the time I've mentioned that I spend on the internet, since a lot of it's spent watching TV on the internet. That's like redefining boundaries and shit.
Anyway, I'm not feeling the whole long, well thought-out introduction thing, so here's the point: sometimes people bastardize the shit out of good TV shows, and here are three examples:
1. Prison Break
Prison Break was fucking epic. I remember when I first watched it—it was the end of summer, and I'd just finished work, but I had about a week before school started. Because of the whole scheduling difference of quarter and semester schools, nobody I knew was home. I was bored as shit, so I got on BitTorrent and started downloading anything with a name that sounded vaguely familiar.
Among those names was Prison Break. The first season was 22 40-minute episodes, and I started the first one at about 9 p.m. I continued watching until I passed out in my chair at 5 a.m., then woke up at 8 a.m. and finished the season. Never in my life have I had to know so badly what was going to happen. You know that girl who kept fighting cancer just long enough until she could see Up? I was like that, except without the cancer, the waiting, the heart-wrenching story, or really any of the things that make that story what it is. Still, I really had to see the next episode after each one ended.
The problem, however, was the show's premise. In the first season, as you may have guessed, they break out of a prison. But what the fuck do you do with Prison Break after they've escaped? Apparently, you turn it into some piece of shit show about government cover-ups and conspiracy theories all of which revolve around a prison in Panama and a giant secret organization.
Eventually, the show got so retarded that they cancelled it and made some vaguely related 90-minute finale in which all of a sudden BOOM, Michael's got brain cancer. Sorry if I ruined that for you, but if it'll stop you from watching past the end of season one, I consider it a favor to you.
2. Lost
I told one of my friends that I was going to write about Lost for this column over AIM, and his response was "YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH." It's hard to convince diehard fans how far south the show has gone, but let's be honest—at this point, it's mind-numbingly retarded.
At first, the fun was in the mystery. Why is there a polar bear on the island (still not explained), and what's with the smoke monster (still not really explained)? Well, in case J.J. Abrams is reading this, here's the problem: If you're keeping your viewers hooked with mysterious occurrences of the supernatural variety, eventually, you've got to give some explanation of them.
J.J., on the other hand, just keeps throwing more at you. Where first you were like, "Oh snaps, a polar bear," now you're like, "Oh snaps, teleporting islands, time travel, and reincarnation!" And still, most things remain unexplained. His solution to each question is to throw out two more, and now the show is just a retarded mass of the inexplicable.
Lost, you were good while you made even a little sense.
3. Batman: The Brave and the Bold
You probably haven't heard of this show. I hadn't either, until recently. Here's a link, in case you really want to check out some episodes.
First, let me preface this by saying I only watch this show when under the effects of certain things, the details of which I'm trying to avoid talking about publicly so that I might one day be employable.
Now that we've gotten that over with, let's get to some basic facts about the show. Each week, it features Batman teaming up with a superhero you've never heard of, usually against a supervillain you've never heard of. Episode 1, for example, features Batman traveling through a wormhole with the Blue Beetle to fight Kanjar-Ro on an alien planet filled with amoeba-like creatures who are filled with something like gasoline (they're called the Gibble people, in case you were wondering). Unfortunately, Kanjar-Ro possesses the Gamma Gong, Blue Beetle's greatest weakness. It's a gong. He hits it and Blue Beetle's shit gets fucked up. Seriously, that's the big weapon.
The episodes only go downhill from there, featuring villains like Quilt Man, Kite Man, and the attractive couple that is Baby Face (a giant man with a tiny head) and Man Face (a woman with a man's face). Finally, the show is punctuated by lines like, "The hammer of justice is unisex" and "Do you see what I see? Because I see giant gorillas… on pterodactyls… with harpoon guns… stealing a boat."
Basically, it's like the guys who had the rights to the Batman franchise decided to see how many episodes of this it would take to regress it back from the gritty, dark tone we have today after the last couple of movies to good old, kooky Adam West-style Batman.
But hey, it's a good watch if you're under certain not publicly disclosable influences.
Oh yeah, and Batman is voiced by none other than Oswald from The Drew Carey Show.