Pushing TV's limits
Just when you thought television couldn't sink any lower, along came Tonya Harding and Paula Jones.
The two met inside a boxing ring last week to duke it out in one of Fox's now-infamous celebrity boxing matches.
Also facing off that night were Danny Bonaduce and Barry Williams, of "Partridge Family" and "Brady Bunch" fame, as well as Todd Bridges from "Diff'rent Strokes" and rapper Vanilla Ice.
Almost makes you nostalgic for the innocence of "Temptation Island."
But take away the shameless face-pounding and you have an even more scary fact: More than 15 million people watched the broadcast.
This ridiculous spectacle has drawn the ire of many a media critic, so this editorial is probably echoing their sentiments.
But it's not just this program that has gotten people disgusted. Consider the following:
— Fox's "The Chamber" required people to answer trivia questions while essentially being mildly tortured — exposed to high temperatures, hit with freezing water, shaken violently, and the like.
— ABC's "The Chair," wasn't quite as masochistic, but contestants had to keep their heart rates below a certain mark in order to advance to the next round of questioning. Both shows are sadism at its finest.
Thankfully, both have been canceled.
— FX's "The Shield" premiered last week, and according to a TV Guide columnist, it had the potential to make NYPD viewers blush. Translation: it had enough sexual content to make most Americans change the channel.
And its characters said words that are normally bleeped out — in particular, to put it delicately, curse words starting with "f" and "s."
— Another cable show featured the same plethora of profanity — ESPN's TV movie about the life of basketball coach Bobby Knight. Of course he cursed freely in real life; now we had to hear it on television as well.
There used to be a line drawn — TV characters couldn't say this particular word or show this part of the body.
Whoever drew the line seems to have gone on vacation.
These shows have one goal in mind: ratings. The more risque, the better. Media critics call the new shows "intense, edgy, in-your face."
Maybe they should just call them disgusting.
— JENNIFER WILSON
