A week without television

Without going into a lot of detail I haven’t watched any television for more than a week now.

True, there’s been some vacation time. Also, I’ve been doing some work in my apartment so the television has basically been facing a wall while that’s been going on.

So except for some ESPN while I was doing laundry one night, I’ve been without television.

This might have been a really bad week to do this. There was the season finale of “Leverage” on TNT, the season of “Parks and Recreation” resumed -- apparently featuring a guy from Minot (I caught the episode on Hulu.com -- thought everyone did a good job). Syfy premiered a new series last week called “Lost Girl” that sounded interesting and the drama “Alcatraz” sounded very interesting as well. Also, the new Laura Prepon comedy based on the life of talk show host Chelsea Handler sounded like a hoot, and I’m hoping to catch up with some of those soon.

But beyond finally dragging the television out to where I could take in the State of the Union address Tuesday night, I hadn’t really felt I’d been missing much of anything, either.

There’s something about television that feels desperate these days. Between fragmented markets, targeted audiences and crass product placement, the talent competitions and game shows are all run to the extreeEEEEEeme and everyone’s backstory is so heartwarming and everyone’s situations are so desperate and we’re all rooting for them ... it gets to be overload.

Calm down

I think what I’d like to see -- and I’d probably be the only person watching it so it would fail instantly -- is a not-exploitative, not-precious show about an elderly shopkeeper who’s lived a pretty exciting past, and every week we learn just a little bit more about her in some exciting action sequence as she relates some of these adventures to a sullen teenage girl who maybe shoplifted from her and is forced to work off what she owes or something, and the girl is kind of dealing with challenges in her own life as well.

The problem with this is that it would instantly get the Hallmark Channel treatment where the past adventures got to be a little too sanitized and the present-day storyline got to be just a little too Cabot Cove. What would make it work is for the two main characters to start seeing themselves in each other with flashbacks to daring car chases and sizzling romances and infidelities and other excitement energizing what could be a little too safe and cozy otherwise.

And again, that would just be one hour of that kind of programming a week and we need so much more good programming.

This column began its life as a celebration of what seemed to be some really outstanding scripted programming growing out from what seemed to be a backlash against reality show overload. The landscape is changed. Shows aren’t given an opportunity to find their audience, let alone build one, and the only new programming ends up being variations on cynically successful themes we’ve all seen a million times before. Good programs -- or not, I mean, who’s given an opportunity to find out? -- are ushered off the stage before they’re able to finish unpacking their act.

So looking ahead, I wish I could be more excited by the offerings out there. But about the only innovation anyone’s taking a chance with in storylines these days is in cable and the only way to pull the necessary interest for those shows is through violence and “adult situations,” to put it mildly.

It’s enough to make you want to turn your television back to facing the wall.