Now I know why we complain. Most, to all of us, want a lot of the old programs back on tv that we use to watch. Not all of these "reality" shows. But, the younger generations win.
A large part of the problem is that modern Hollywood has no imagination. They either co-opt the shows of the past (like all of the Disney remakes), or they take the single concept of "Reality Show" (was Survivor the first?) and plug in different scenarios. The really stupid thing about "Reality Shows" is that they mirror no one's reality.
I'm seeing a lot of the old shows with an antenna. A recent channel addition was Channel 30 with 8 sub-channels. One sub-channel is all old game shows like Password and To Tell The Truth. Another has old shows from the History Channel. There's a comedy sub-channel as well with Laverne and Shirley among others. I find myself spending more time there than at any other channels.
I wish they would broadcast that stuff in my market. We get a bunch of legacy shows, but not the old game shows or History channel stuff. Do you recall what stations those broadcast on, Ed? (MeTV, Grit, Circle, etc.) As and aside (and you may already be aware of this), I use an online TV Guide that shows the channels in my market and lets me tags Favorites. ZAP2It.com There used to be one that let you rearrange the sort order so you could group all the like-kind stations together, but it went under.
I retract my prior statement regarding Hollywood having no imagination. "We're gonna need a bigger gondola."
Yeah, but I really hate them bringing back old TV shows or old movies and "correcting them" to reflect current norms. If they want to make a new show similar to an old one, they should not use the same characters or the same story lines. Magnum PI is a good example. They can't have a group of hetero guys anymore, so they change Higgins into a woman, not from WWII but from MI6, and the guys met somehow in Iraq or Afghanistan--a war, sure, but NOTHING like Vietnam except the length. I would be an okay show IMO if it weren't reusing an old name and plot line. Same goes for Hawaii 50 and Quantum Leap.
Wasn't there a brief stint of Sherlock Holmes where Doctor Watson was some Asian female? Co-opting classic literature is worse than modifying that which was vacuous in the first place. Hell hath no fury like a tranny scorned.
Yeah, that was a show called "Elementary" on CBS (I think). I have no idea how long it lasted as I never watched it as the premise is awful. I have been a Holmes fan for many decades, and inserting a female into the role of Watson was again terrible. You can have all female shows, or all Black shows., but no all White shows or all male shows. Asians kinda get lost in the shuffle except for martial arts stuff. In the old days things were as bad or worse, when you had White people playing Native Americans and Asians, and females were usually in supporting roles. I just think the creative genius of writers should be freed and not have to confine themselves to stereotypes. Just my opinion and wishes.
I was always a die-hard Basil Rathbone fan, but Jeremy Brett won me over. And John Hawkesworth was a much more plausible Doctor Watson than Nigel Bruce. It's rare that I'll prefer anyone other than the originator of the role, much less two leading actors in the same series. Regarding Native Americans...we've had everyone from Victor Mature (from Louisville born of Italian immigrants) to Michael Ansara (from Syria) to Leonard Nimoy (a Bostonian born of Ukrainian Jews) in those roles. I bet you know that Iron Eyes Cody... ...was really Espera Oscar de Corti, born of Italian immigrants. Mel Brookes was probably my favorite indigenous person of dubious lineage.
How about Warner Oland (a Swede) playing a Chinese detective? https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0645941/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
We now have Game Show Network, that we didn't have before. It definitely has some of the old/older game shows on it. We also have METV (Memorable TV) that has a lot of old shows on it. We also now have GRIT, that has a lot of the old western tv shows and movies on it. However, we are paying dearly for these extra channels, but they are great to have.
As for me, I prefer to see Jack Lord's Hawaii Five-O. I liked the old Magnum PI also. We get both of these on one channel we have. Actually, I didn't know how great an actress Loretta Swit was, until I not only watched her in MASH, but on an episode of Gunsmoke and Hawaii Five-O. I knew how great Tom Selleck was in Magnum PI, but then I seen him in his western movies and he was great in them as well. Never watched him in Blue Bloods. Of course, Don, these shows update for the younger viewers, definitely not for us! Then again, from the younger generation I've talked to, seems like there are very few of the younger viewers today.
We can get those over the air for free here, except the game show channel. We get Grit, MeTV, Antenna TV--all old folks channels--and now Outlaw, another cowboy channel.