Things I Would Rather Do Than Pay For CBS
I love Star Trek.
I do not love Star Trek enough to pay CBS for the privilege of watching it (with the exception of the first episode Star Trek Discovery will be shown exclusively on the app).
As inexplicably popular as CBS remains, they stay deeply committed to churning out unforgivably terrible television (In my opinion, CBS is to scripted television what Fox News is to journalistic television).
Idiotic premises, shallow binary characters, frequently insulting writing, you name it, they excel at all of them. Just count the awfulness zombies:
NCIS (bad mysteries, awful acting, shallow moralism and heroism…that’s CBS)
Bull (a show so terrible that I almost had to quit watching the NCAA basketball tournament just to avoid seeing the never ending stream of commercials for Bull).
Hawaii 5–0, Scorpion (Did you know they are a team of ‘Geniuses”), Blue Bloods, 2 Broke Girls, NCIS Los Angeles (it just keeps on coming).
It is hard for me to even comprehend of a roster of shows that bad, and then when you remember that they are also responsible for “James Patterson’s Zoo” too you just have to step back and say “Wow.”
Did I mention this is also the network of “Candy Crush” the game show?
And don’t even try to throw Big Bang Theory at me (a show that follows that terrible “every single action by any major character requires a pithy quip in response” style of comedy writing).
Let’s just say that Donald Trump’s victory makes MUCH more sense to me whenever I see the CBS logo and the tagline “America’s Most Watched Network.”
And the craziest thing about the CBS strategy is that they are taking two of their only good programs and moving them to the app (Star Trek and the spinoff from the Good Wife). In a sense, we all already pay for CBS as part of our cable packages and because we endure their ad revenue model.
I am tired of being charged for channels I don’t watch in the first place. I am tired of the absurdly high costs of cable (an industry that seems totally unaware that they are under the same kind of assault that killed the book, record, and that is now threatening the entire retail industry). And I am absolutely not going to pay even more to watch one show (which could be terrible — they refused to let even critics see it).
Anyway, here are some of the things I would rather do than pay for CBS (and remember, I have watched every hour of every other version of Star Trek)…I would rather:
- Clean out all of the stalls in Grand Central Station with my tongue (okay, I borrowed that one from Weird Al)
- Listen to a full day of Taylor Swift or Maroon 5
- Drink a weeks worth of that terrible fluid they make you drink before a colonoscopy
- Eat Cream Chipped Beef
- Watch Iron Fist Again
- Watch a Movie Starring Julianne Hough
- Go to a Dane Cook concert
- Watch every Alvin and the Chipmunks Movie back-to-back
- Swim in the Ganges
- Hang out with Jeff Sessions
At least with a service like Netflix, I get access to hundreds of other shows and movies for my $9.99 and NO commercials. And with Medium, I can pay to read with no bloatware, pop ups, or clickbait. What exactly is CBS offering me?
Josh is a 100% reader-funded blogger and freelance writer. Please consider following him on Twitter, throwing a tip into his hat on Patreon, or adding his blog OnPirateSatellite to your feeds. Support writing on platforms like Medium that don’t have pop-ups or bloatware!
