I Suck At Television Preview

today is the final day of analog. broadcasting companies all over the country are making the transition to digital. yay! granted, the transition will most likely not affect many people. the last person i know who still had rabbit ears was my friend (hot amy). but luckily for her, she recently joined the 21st century and ordered cable television... and is now addicted to public access television.

nevertheless, in celebration of analog broadcasting's final days, karen and did what any person would do on a friday night: we watched television. now, we didn't watch just any television. no. karen and i got to hang out with my friends (marc and kelley) for a special event known as the "television preview".

yes, we have no life on a friday night. some time last week, i received a special invitation in the mail by television preview. now, i suck at television preview. according to the letter, i had been randomly selected to participate in the viewing of some television pilot episodes, to which i would have to provide valuable feedback on.

a long time ago, karen and i participated in the exact same thing. when we were in college, my friends (marc and kelley), karen and i received an invitation to watch some television pilot episodes and provide feedback on those shows. marc seems to think that my friend (aimee) also joined us for the event. unfortunately, since my memory is pretty much non-existent, i could not remember if she did join us or not.

the only thing that i could remember from the first time was that tom wopat of "the dukes of hazzard" fame starred in one of the television pilot episodes. (for anyone curious, tom wopat is luke duke.) that was pretty much all i remembered from the first time.

anyway, having received an invitation last week, i thought it would be fun to try the television preview thing again with marc and kelley. luckily, marc enjoys market research. so, since we had no life on a friday night, we decided to attend the television preview event.

the television preview event was held at the marriott in quincy. it's definitely quite interesting to see who else has no life on a friday night. quite possibly the most interesting person we saw tonight was this black woman... with what kelley described as a caterpillar on her lip. and by caterpillar, kelley meant a full on mustache. if there were a fight simulation between this woman and a caterpillar, the caterpillar would win... and the caterpillar did win. the mustache was just... awful.

of course, i may be jealous because i can can't grow facial hair myself. when hair does grow on my face, i get the stereotypical asian fu manchu thing going... which is also not attractive. so needless to say, this woman grows better facial hair than i do. it's a good thing i didn't have a wager going on with this woman because i'd definitely lose. needless to say, this woman was but one of the many lucky people that we got to spend the night watching television with.

anyway, aside from the shock and awe of the 'stache, the television preview was not all that it was cracked up to be. sure, the name "television preview" may sound like you are participating in a focus group about television shows. in reality, marc, kelley, karen and i think the whole thing is marketing research sham. (we're on to them.) in fact, we think the entire event isn't even about television research at all.

we began the night by filling in a few questionnaires about some everyday products. a few lucky winners were then selected to win some schwag. and then... the fun began. the first television pilot we watched was called "soul mates", starring that woman from lipstick jungle... kim raver. interestingly enough, there is information about this pilot episode on imdb.

apparently, this pilot episode is from 1997. if i could summarize the episode, i would. unfortunately, the episode was just awful... like that woman's mustache. not only did we have to watch this horrible thing called a pilot episode, we had to sit through the commercials too. although, after watching something as terrible as "soul mates", it makes one think that it can't be too hard to come up with some idea for a television show in hollywood. heck, i bet the "fry it" quincy public access television show idea that my friends and i have would get better ratings than the dribble known as "soul mates".

following "soul mates", we were asked a couple of questions about the show and some more people won some free schwag. obviously, i did not give any good grades for the show. if i think the show is terrible, you know it definitely has to be terrible. i will watch just about anything... yet i could not watch "soul mates". i can only suspend reality for so long before i've had enough. i was actually stunned that there were some people who actually enjoyed the show. that was surprising.

anyway, from there we dove into the next television pilot: "dads". you have to love the internet movie database because there is an entry on that pilot episode as well. apparently "dads" is also from 1997. karen's eyes initially lit up with excitement because it was announced to everyone that rue mcclanahan was in the episode. (for anyone curious, rue mcclanahan plays blanche devereaux in karen's favorite television show: the golden girls.)

needless to say, "dads" was also awful... yet much better than "soul mates". the premise of the pilot was... well... the generic sitcom... only with a fathers. the fathers included steven eckholdt, who i only remember from melrose place as some guy that dated jane; c thomas howell of red dawn (wolverines!) fame; and adam ferrara... who i had no idea as to what he's been in, but he did channel a bad tony danza in the episode.

the funny thing was... karen immediately remembered watching this bad pilot episode before. as proof, she correctly predicted what was going to happen next in the episode. and then after she mentioned it, i started to get that vague notion that i had also seen it before. neither of us know why we remember seeing the episode before. it was weird. i wonder if the episode was used in conjunction with the tom wopat pilot from days of yore.

and again, we had to watch the entire sitcom complete with commercials. from there, we then had to partake in some more questions... although this time the questions were more geared toward actual products and not the television episode itself. after some more thought, all of us started to realize that we were not participating in a "television preview" as the name implies, but product marketing research as some of those products appeared in the commercials to those pilot episodes. (i did say i suck at television preview, right?)

personally, that tactic seems a little shady to me. if the company wanted marketing information about particular products, i would have no problem completing the survey in the comfort of my own home and sending the company data. but to orchestrate a scenario under the pretense of a "television preview"... that is a little cheesy.

anyway, after the "preview", the four of us immediately drank booze. we definitely needed to... after sitting through those god-awful pilot episodes... from 1997. we would have been better off if we had crashed the wedding rehearsal dinner at the marriott like i had suggested earlier.

truth be told, the night was all that bad. the bright spot of the night was hanging out with my friends... and i do always enjoy that.