Apparently there is such a thing as too much TV. And add some malt liquor to the mix and things go horribly wrong. A New Mexico man, after watching The Walking Dead, thought his friend was a zombie and tried to kill him:
Then, Perry told police, the victim, Christopher Paquin, 23, tried “to bite him,” according to a statement from cops. Perry “reacted by brutally beating” Paquin with his hands and feet, the release said, and also used an electric guitar, kitchen knives and a microwave to kill the victim.
The sad part? This is what we used as a “light” news story.
Team Blackness also discussed yet another questionable civilian shooting by police near St. Louis, for the first time a prosecutor will go to jail for wrongfully convicting an innocent man, and a camerawoman tries to sue a Syrian refugee she tripped that was caught on tape.
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ThresherK (GPad)
I just dropped our Nielen survey in the mail today.
Apologies if we got your favorite show cancelled.
Amir Khalid
The camerawoman’s husband is reportedly suing the refugee. Apparently, it’s become a matter of family honour.
gvg
No. That is not too much TV. That is mental illness. People can’t address real issues if you confuse what the problem is.
there is such a thing as too much TV and it can cause problems….like missing out on other opportunities and delaying child development maybe. Not wanting to do homework or read. Not getting enough exercise. Actual problems, just not what this story is about.
We can usefully discuss resources or the lack in mental health, social stigmas, how the justice system handles the mentally ill…he is probably lucky he got arrested and not shot.
Possibility of drug use too I guess.
Cervantes
@ThresherK (GPad):
Apologies shmapologies.
Get all the shows canceled and I’ll buy you a drink.
rikyrah
Drugs must be a part of this story.
dexwood
@rikyrah: Definitely alcohol.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
They do mention multiple 40s, and if he was really binge-watching the whole series, he might well have been severely sleep deprived, too. I’m guessing that serious mental health problems are involved, though.
Jay C
The knives I can understand, but an electric guitar? What did he try to do? Riff his friend to death?
Or did he misunderstand the use of the term “axe”??
Punchy
If this doesn’t sum up the heart of the GOP mindset, nothing will.
Summary: Because Carson once showed he has a heart and compassion, he’s unfit to be President.
Unfuckingreal.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Cervantes: Get rid of the entertainment(sic) in its entirety and it’ll just be infomercials continuously. I am not ready for TV to be the 2am-4am shift all the time.
Randy P
@Punchy: Isn’t that pretty much at the core of all “RINO” frothing? “He once worked with a Democrat”. “He supported a compassionate immigration bill.”
You’re supposed to be a Christian, but not believe in anything Christ actually taught.
Randy P
@Jay C: I was kind of wondering how he used the microwave but was afraid to pursue that line of questioning.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@gvg:
Drugs or alcohol + mental illness is a very nasty combination. The guy is in the right age group to have his first psychotic break if he’s schizophrenic.
PurpleGirl
Guitar = hatchet or hammer
Microwave = rock
amused
@Cervantes:
So, because you don’t like something, you want to deprive everyone. Sounds familiar, but can’t quite put my finger on it…
grandpa john
@Randy P: Yeah but Jesus covered the false christian thing in Matthew 7:18-23
ThresherK (GPad)
@Punchy: How long before Carson is shown to have a gay cousin or other relative who “doesn’t need special rights”?
It’s the Get Out of Equality Free card in their board game.
JustRuss
@Punchy: Didn’t realize Carson was on Costco’s board. That alone should disqualify him. Costco’s been vilified by conservatives for paying their employees living wages, at the expense of their poor, suffering shareholders. How can the GOP nominate a communist like that?
MomSense
This is why I had to stop watching Breaking Bad.
I’m kidding except that I did actually have to stop binge watching the show because it made me too upset and nervous. I only watched a few minutes of Walking Dead because of that first scene with the child zombie. I really don’t do well with violent images especially involving children and animals.
ThresherK (GPad)
@MomSense:”So good I couldn’t watch it” is a phrase I use which is not a backhanded compliment. It shows the creators have hit an emotional resonance.
I often can tell when something’s just put into a story for cheap manipulative purposes.
Which category do you put “Breaking Bad” into?
PS “District 9” is high on my list of cringe comedy with sci-fi apartheid allegory masterpieces. For the reason listed above I have never finished it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@amused:
I really don’t get the “all TV is bad!” meme, especially when people try to claim movies are automatically superior to TV. It’s like saying all novels are bad, and “true” fiction should only be short stories.
Movies are short-form storytelling and TV is long-form. You can prefer short-form vs long-form without deciding that long-form is automatically bad.
Woodrowfan
why is Carson on Costco’s Board anyway? Do they have bulk discount brain surgery??
amused
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Exactly. There are good and bad bits to any entertainment medium, and tastes differ. What you like is not a personality flaw, it’s just a good conversation starter. I suppose what you don’t like is, too.
Happy Friday!
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Part of the reason a lot of people dismiss TV is because they’re thinking of what TV used to be like. For most of the history of TV, shows were deliberately written so that they could be watched out of order. That meant every episode had to be a more-or-less complete story, and no individual show could change the fundamental character of the series. That made TV even shorter form storytelling than movies but without the potential for real character development. There were exceptions for miniseries and for some shows like The Twilight Zone that didn’t have a stable cast that needed protecting, but most of TV was operating under very serious storytelling restrictions.
It’s only quite recently that any American TV was allowed to have long-term story lines or serious character development so that it could be true long-form storytelling. There are still plenty of shows that stick with the old episodic formula. I assume the driving factor in the change is the way that shows made money after their original broadcast. Back when, the long-term money was in syndication, where shows were routinely shown out of order, dictating the nothing fundamental changes format. The big change was when DVD box sets became common. They let people binge watch old episodes in the expected order, so it became more plausible to tell stories that required people to watch in strict order.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Roger Moore:
The change started happening even before then, though, going all the way back to shows like “Hill Street Blues” and “St. Elsewhere,” and yet people still seem to have this weird vision of TV as being endless remakes of “The Love Boat.”
Yes, there are some crappy TV shows that are inexplicably popular, but welcome to mass culture. Even Salieri was more popular in his day than Mozart was.
MomSense
@ThresherK (GPad):
I think Breaking Bad is so good, so well acted and played that I end up caring about the characters and feeling so angry with them and scared for them. It’s very tense.
Sometimes I can’t watch or finish something because I get too embarrassed for the character.
sempronia
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
The over-the-top craziness of it makes me think bath salts.
Cervantes
@amused:
Right. Better be careful. I’m headed in your direction. Right now. To smash all your viewing screens. Life will never be the same.
yet another jeff
@Jay C:
…then he went before the judge…the judge asked him “first offender?”
He replied “No, your honor…it was a Gibson”
Thank you…tip your waitstaff…try the vegan veal substitute…
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I am probably oversimplifying. Some of the push for episodic shows was because people couldn’t guarantee they’d watch every week, so writers didn’t want to lose fans if people missed critical episodes and couldn’t follow later ones. That was mitigated by the rise of video recorders, which made it much easier for people to catch every show even if they didn’t see it as it aired. But I think the switch from syndication to video sales as the main driver of profit after the first run has a lot to do with changing people’s views of the importance of show-to-show continuity. That and the success of groundbreaking shows that demonstrated what you could do with long-range plots.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Doesn’t it go back before that? Remember “Roots”? The huge audiences that mini-series like that drew had to convince TV executives that there was a market for shows that had story-lines that lasted longer than 25-50 minutes.
Rich Man,Poor Man; Roots; Centennial; Jesus of Nazareth; etc., etc.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cervantes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Don’t forget Herman Wouk.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cervantes: And “Shōgun” and …
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.