The rather brilliant Hank Steuver, kicking off his hilarious review of new daytime talk show The Wendy Williams Show:
What should be on television in the middle of the day? What should fill the space between all those commercials for personal-injury attorneys, cures for urinary-tract infections and the promises of vo-tech schooling? Should anything be on? (Is “off” an option anymore, even in hospitals?)
All the available genres nearly died or migrated to niche networks — game shows, sitcom reruns, soaps, cooking demonstrations, local chatter. What programming remains will make you thank your lucky stars that you aren’t infirm or underemployed. The sound of a television turned on at high noon is the sound of utter human defeat. (The drone never ceases with the ads: bad credit, bad floors, bad living.)
As someone who is under-to-unemployed and on occasion turns on live TV in the middle of the day: Ye gods, is he ever right.
Isn’t that why God invented TiVo?
Oh dear god yes it is. But once in a while I’ll turn on CNN just to have something on in the background while I’m reading the entire internet, and that’s when the stuff he described just comes and makes you even more depressed about being unemployed than you already were.