Attack Of The Show!….what can I say? A lot. Okay, so I’ve the first two weeks of the show, that’s 10 episodes and I’m now ready to give my thoughts to all you people out there who couldn’t give a….bean.. about anything I have to say.
Attack Of The show! is a stupid name for a show, but it works and fits in very well with the content of the show, so in fact it is a good name and I basically contradicted myself in my very first piece of criticism towards the show in this article. Okay, first off, let’s get one thing clear, people say that Attack of the show! is basically the Screen Savers being renamed. This is both right and wrong. Right for the reasons that
a)The show has the same hosts as the screen savers.
b)The show has some of the same elements as the screen savers, such as the brilliantly titled DVDeusday and “The Feed”.
Saying that Attack Of The Show! is just The Screen Savers is wrong though because, The Screen Savers died pretty much on May 28th 2004, when they had to stop being live for what must have been a few months and do pre recorded shows just to keep us satisfied until everything was nice and cozy over at G4. But that’s a whole other, larger story that I intend to touch on, but not now, we’re discussing a smaller piece of the pie here.
Basically, it goes without saying that Attack Of The Show! is by no means bad. Let’s get that out there. Does that mean I’ll recommend you watch it? Keep reading…
The first episode of Attack Of The Show! made it apparent that this was going to be a whole new experience, what with the new set and slightly changed format, the show was looking so cool and professional and it really was a sigh to behold. You can’t help but get the feeling that this is something so new and different compared to what we are accustomed to and you can’t believe that things have changed so much, and for the better to boot; then reality kicks in. In the very first episode we were met with Dark Deals, a segment we would have been familiar with on The Screen Savers. I couldn’t help but notice Kevin Rose was talking about a product, I believe it was some software to make you anonymous on the net, and this is the very first episode of AOTS, mind you, yet you’ve heard the words uttered from Kevin Rose’s mouth, something along the lines of “we’ve had this on the show before”.
To me that shows that this really isn’t a new show, this is all cosmetic and that when you are hearing the music for the opening for AOTS, listen carefully and you might just hear the undermining screams that are the pleas from a dying TSS. Am I getting too dramatic for you? Don’t worry, I’ll talk some sense now.
The thing about AOTS is again, it’s not a bad show, I mean, it’s certainly not The Screen Savers in any regard and hardcore tech dudes may get a kick out of the show. It’s entertainment to say the least, or “lifestyle programming” as G4 would put it. Again, it’s a decent show, I mean, the start before every show has a cool skit in the beginning, be it Darth Vader at a bar, hitting on women, using pickup lines that are essentially obscure Star Wars euphemisms, or a guy with a sheet over his head flicking the lights on and off during a meeting and no one acknowledges him. The content? Why, big ass, working NES controllers, suicide girls and card stacking, who wouldn’t like that!? This show “rawks my sawks” and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen……WAIT A MINUTE! Now that I think of it, this show is like something I’ve seen, many times before, and then get cancelled!
The thing about AOTS is that every time I look at it, I can’t help but see Unscrewed in my eyes. The set, the content, the ambience of the whole thing, not to mention the red couch, I mean, come on, you’d have to be crazy not to see that this show is basically a fusion of Unscrewed with Martin Sargent and The Screen Savers. Now, I know that Mr. Hischoff (forgive me if the name is spelt wrong, it’s just that I’ve heard of him and couldn’t be bothered to check his name) didn’t like Unscrewed and so had it cancelled, but boy, I’m sure glad to know that geniuses like him run this fine, fine Network we call G4, after all, NO ONE would notice a show like Unscrewed getting cancelled and then, I don’t know, about 5 months later replace it with a show just like it?! You know, I wonder if the G4 people think that TechTv fans are ignorant or stupid, because I get the feeling that they are BOTH! Now, I mean no disrespect to anyone who likes G4 and came from the G4 side of the merger, even though we know that the majority of people who come from there are nine years old who couldn’t be bothered with any kind of real, quality programming. No, this angst goes out to the money grubbing guys upstairs. Just know that Comcast, who owns G4, has made an investment in G4 that is supposed to have them at least break even and/or turn a profit by, what I believe is 2007. With any luck, this won’t happen and G4 will be pulled. It’s not to say that I don’t like G4, which if I said I did, would be true, to some extent. Again, I’m getting sidetracked because this is all part of a much bigger picture. The bottom line is that if you found TSS was a little boring, then AOTS is for you, but for true TechTV fans who miss Unscrewed, then this show is also for you. For those of us, such as myself, who just want things to be fair, you might find it hard to watch, knowing the back-story to this whole ordeal. It’s not like I won’t watch, I will, but for far different reasons than I did TSS. And to the tech fans, the heart and soul of TechTV, I won’t fret too much though, I know that
bigger and
better things are on the way.
