Why television marathons cause me pain

There is a phenomenon in television in which all television on Saturday night is horrendous.  More horrendous than usual.  I realize that this is because people are supposed to have social lives and not be watching television on Saturday night.  But every once in a while, when I want to take a break from my wild, Paris Hilston-esque lifestyle, I spend the night in.  These rare times are frustrating.  The only way I can describe the apparent philosophy for lining up shows on Saturday night television is: why bother?

The feeling that television stations have given up on providing me with something interesting to watch is doubly prominent around the new year.  They make a minimal effort to dress up the fact that nobody wants to work by giving us a series of marathons of popular shows.  As a college student, one of the only times I can bask in the downward spiral of entertainment in an unadulterated fashion and sit in front of a television with the single-minded intent to kill brain cells is Christmas break.  This coincides with the television marathons.

Mass marathoning presents two sides of a coin of interest.  In some cases, I like the show, and therefore spend hours watching it, clutching the remote to my chest and hissing like Golem from The Lord of the Rings when my mother tries to turn on the nightly news.  Entire days are wasted.  VH1 is showing "America's Next Top Model" for the next week; thank goodness I scheduled things to get me out of the house prior to knowing this, because there would be trouble, otherwise (I just can't resist a catfight between girls who are so malnourished and skinny that their arms snap in two when a strong breeze blows.  I sort of understand why they're all so bitchy, since they all look so hungry).

In other cases, I hate the show.  I surf through channel after channel, weeping on the inside upon  encountering a third straight day of a Law and Order marathon.  Having the mass marathons of shows I don't enjoy shove out the occasional shows I actually watch is like falling asleep in a rainforest with sickly trees, only to wake up and discover that they've chopped down even those.  And that the paper from those trees is being used for emo middle school poetry.

Alas!

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