Top 10 TV Shows I Would Change for the "Better"

I love TV. I’ve spent time with TV. I’ve had dinners with TV. I even once proposed to TV (it was super awkward: after I popped the question, it cut to one of those “No Means No” PSAs and we haven’t spoken about it since.)

But I think TV could be improved. Here’s my “Top 10 TV Shows I Would Change for the Better” List. The changes could be as small as changing the font used for the logo or as big as replacing the entire cast with coked up cats. Let’s find out how I would ruin improve various television shows!

10) Eureka

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: A science-fiction show where the local sheriff must solve the problems of the secret town of super geniuses before they accidentally kill everyone or erase them from time or stuff.

What would I change: Make it dumber.

Eureka is one of my guilty pleasures. I love watching it, but I sometimes feel bad doing so. Eureka uses science for spectacle, not as of enlightening the audience. That’s fine. I’m not expecting Eureka to be Carl Sagan, but the problem comes from them making all the smart science person stupid and all science experiments as the writers’ deus ex machina.

Here’s the basic plot of each episode: Sheriff Carter, the only character in the show that isn’t a genius, is going about his rounds, interacting with people, when suddenly, some scientist’s experiment goes wrong. Carter has no idea what’s going on, but once another scientist explains it to him, Carter uses his folksy wisdom in the form of a metaphor to somehow solve a problem that a think tank town could not solve, and everything returns to the status quo. I get that if Carter couldn’t solve all of the problems, the show’s main character would be expendable, but it’s like if I walked into Microsoft and using my folksy wisdom, I was able to fix everything they’re doing wrong; I just can’t suspend my disbelief that far.

The other problem is that the writers use science to do whatever the hell they want. There was a character that was autistic. Not anymore! Poof! Someone travelled through time, and for some reason, that caused the character to not be autistic. Why? Because the writers didn’t want to go through the trouble of writing for an autistic kid, but they seem comfortable writing for a generic, angsty teenager, thus robbing the character of his uniqueness. Eureka does this sort of thing frequently to change specific characters or remove/add plots whenever they want.

Getting to the point, Eureka should drop the charade and embrace their stupidity. They’re on a network that spells “sci-fi” as “Sy-Fy” for goodness sake! Sure, we’re going against Kirk Lazarus’ advice, but they should just go full retard anyway. Have Carter turn into Chuck and know everything. Have the scientists interact with themselves from parallel universe. Why do ridiculous stuff with science but still pretend there’s a line somewhere?

9) Pee Wee’s Playhouse

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: It was a show for children where Pee-Wee Herman has wacky adventures in his house with a variety of colorful characters.

What would I change: Make it darker/more adult

The Pee-Wee franchise is amazingly flexible: it started off as an adult stage show, it then became a weird/creepy Tim Burton movie, and then finally became a cheerful children’s show. I can’t think of any show/movie/character that went through that many tone changes.

I love dark comedy. I also love adult comedy presented as children’s (ex. South Park, Conker’s Bad Fur Day) and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse seems like the perfect show to be turned into a children’s show for adults. Who wouldn’t want to see a toilet with eyes and a mouth spouting potty language?

8) Odd Couple

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: Two divorced men, one clean the other a slob, trying to live together

What would I change: Turn one of them into a serial killer and the other into the cop trying to catch him but neither one realizes what the other one really is.

If I’m remaking the Odd Couple, I’m doing it my way. It’s still a sitcom with a live audience/canned laughter. Except, it’d tackle darker themes through the levity of a sitcom. For example, Oscar has killed a man in the kitchen and is covered in blood. He leaves the kitchen and he’s surprised to see Felix back from work so soon. Felix asks about Oscar’s stains. Oscar lies and explains that he’s making spaghetti and he accidentally spilled tomato sauce all over himself. Felix goes in and tastes it and complains that there’s too much iron. Cue the canned laughter.

See? It’s brilliant and practically writes itself.

7) Ally McBeal

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: A young lawyer trying to find love in her busy city life

What would I change: Make Ally McBeal suffer a lot

I could not stand Ally at all. I can relate to her trying to find that special someone, but after watching nearly three seasons of the show, I realized that she’s that crazy woman we all know. You know, the one who wants a nice, interesting, funny guy, but when he does show up, she verbally abuses him and laments how she’ll never find him and then she acts highly emotional/irrational and gets upset when everyone’s angry at her for acting crazy. It’s like my Facebook home page during high school.

She’s not even interesting as a character. I don’t really like a lot of the characters on Mad Men as people, but I at least find them interesting enough to keep watching. Ally just annoys me. Her whole world pisses me off because it’s shallow and cheap. I love the musical Pippin. They used the song “Finale” from it for an episode where a character dies, and gospel choir sings the song, reflecting on the character’s life. My jaw dropped.

Do you know what the song’s about? In the musical, the Leading Player and his band of performers are telling Pippin that if he lights himself on fire, he’ll be special. The song is about trying to convince someone to commit suicide. But not in the world of Ally McBeal, where the only lyrics they hear are “think about your life.”

The only time I enjoy the show is when Ally is suffering, so why not just make the show that? We just watch Ally’s life getting worse and worse, until she figures out to not be crazy and shallow.

Look at that! I took an average TV show and turned it into a Greek tragedy! I earned my gold star sticker today.

6) Two and a Half Men

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: Charlie Sheen being a womanizer with two cardboard cutouts, except Charlie is replaced with Aston Kutcher who does stuff or whatever I don’t know man.

What would I change: Replacing the entire cast with coked up cats

But Seriously, what would I change: Cancel it.

I’ve seen an episode or two on a plane, and unlike the Internet, I didn’t hate it. I didn’t loathe it, or abhor it, or even scorn it. It was a mediocre, average show, whose episode content I immediately forgot about after getting off of the plane. So why do I want it cancelled? Because it’s merely mediocre, but it has so much success and there is nothing I hate more than something being successful without doing something risky or different.

I can forgive The Room for being bad, but you at least remember lines/scenes from it, right? I can’t say that about Two and a Half Men. 

5) The Spectacular Spider-man

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: The best goddamn spider-man tv show

What would I change: Not cancel it

I loved the show. It was like the old 1990s Spider-Man TV show, except it’s great without the nostalgia glasses. From what I understand, the show wound up being cancelled for political reasons and we wound up with…Ultimate Spider-Man. *shudders*

Spectacular Spider-Man was funny when it wanted, and dramatic when it needed to be. It even had a unique look to it. It was Spider-Man through and through unlike…Ultimate Spider-Man with its faux anime style, humor that’s trying too hard, and flat drama and why the hell is Spider-Man part of a team!? It’s not called “Spider-Man and Friends” dammit! But, I digress.

Spectacular-Spiderman was a show that was not only cut before it’s prime, but was replaced with a soulless imposter, like the time Barney Gumble showed up to Kamp Krusty as Krusty the Klown.

Except it was more disappointing.

4) Pokémon

Image from Pokemon Wikipedia

What was it about: A kid trying to be the very best, like no one ever was. To catch them was his test; to train him was his cause.

What would I change: Make Ash a living legend

They pretty much laid out Ash’s goals in the opening theme song. Ash wanted:

#1- To be the best Pokémon trainer

#2- To catch all of the Pokémon for Prof. Oak’s Pokédex

But he doesn’t do either of these things. Sure he gets new Pokémon (primarily by becoming “friends” instead of beating the crap out of them with his other Pokémon and then catching them like a normal trainer would) but he keeps swapping out his roster and even releasing some of his Pokémon. Basically, Ash’s roster is of a bunch of Pokémon at level 30, and one Pikachu whose level is a number that we haven’t named yet.

I get that he’s twelve, but even when I played the first game at eight, I understood that I need to have a diverse team of 6-12 Pokémon that are each a high enough level to stand a chance against the Elite Four. Red, the parallel version of Ash from Pokémon Gold & Silver understood the concept, but lacked the ambition I’m envisioning.

In my version of Pokémon, Ash wouldn’t be Simple Jack retarded, he’d at least be competent enough to understand my strategy I developed at age eight, and Ash would have accomplished his goal of being the very best after the second season. The seasons after that would be him and his small team of Pokémon personally destroying Team Rocket, catching whatever Pokémon he needed to complete his Pokédex (yes, including legendaries) and being an all around boss.

Then he’d beat Gary and then kill him with his Chairzard. Fuck Gary.

3) Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: Aaron Sorkin dramedy about a live sketch comedy show

What would I change: Not make it political

I was in love with the pilot for Studio 60…then I loved some of the early episodes…then I liked the episodes…by the end I hated the show because it promised me to be an Aaron Sorkin dramedy about sketch comedy and ended up being an Aaron Sorkin dramedy about politics, disguised as a dramedy about sketch comedy. It’s like Aaron Sorkin was trying to change the show into what was best for him, not what was best for the show.

It started out great: Matthew Perry was in a role meant for him, Bradley Whitford was fantastic, in fact the whole cast was awesome. All Sorkin had to do was not fuck it up. That was all. If the show had remained what it was at the pilot, but not quite as great, it’d still have been great. But instead what happened was that Sorkin kept adding in more and more politics into the show into that’s all we had.

If I wanted to watch a dumbed down version of the West Wing, I would have just Googled the porn parody where everyone is walking, talking, and fucking quickly.

2) 30 rock

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: Tina Fey tries to run a fake sketch comedy show at NBC

What would I change: Make it a cop drama

I love 30 Rock, and I don’t really think I could improve anything without changing what makes the show…the show, I figured I’d do something completely different. Imagine: another cop drama on NBC with the cast of 30 Rock in similar roles (Jack Donaghy as the police captain nearing retirement/promotion, Liz Lemon is the head detective, Jenna and Tracy are partners that don’t play by the rules, Kenneth is the helpful cadet, etc.).

Instead of being a show making jabs at NBC, the show itself would be a parody of NBC’s own lineup, with celebrity cameos as police officers and crack dealers and dead people. I always felt [insert name of hated celebrity] was born to play the role of a dead hooker on a Tina Fey cop drama parody.

1) Friends

Image from Wikipedia

What was it about: A sitcom about 6 friends having fun in New York

What would I change: Make everyone a pedophile except Joey

I loved Friends, I did. But like I always say, “If it ain’t broke, break it.” Sociopaths have their own shows (ex. Dexter, Breaking Bad, Keeping Up With The Kardashians), why not pedophiles? Friends would be the perfect show to retool to show the world that pedophiles are normal people like you or me (except for the child molesting part).

Besides, I just like the idea of one of the biggest shows in television history being about pedophiles so I can reference its success to depress anyone who’s annoying me with his positive view of humanity.

Try to tell me that if there was a scene where Chandler is talking about a hot piece of ass and when Joey leans in and asks who he’s talking about and Chandler says the boy down the hall and Joey’s eyes pop out and he runs away as the laugh track plays that you’re not smiling just a bit. I fucking dare you.