Slashdot Mirror
Leo Laporte Returns to G4TV
TimeForGuinness writes "Leo Laporte returns to G4TV along with the show Call For Help. It premieres Monday the 29th of August at 11am ET/8am PT. As a long time ZDTV and TechTV fan, I am happy to see him return." Agreed. Good to see him back on a cable show. The first few episode topics include: "Waterproof Your Gadgets, Find a Wi-Fi Hotspot, Tweak Your TV Tones, Network Enabled DVD Players"
Call for Help had some good interviews. And they had some good segments (usually involving Kevin Rose and some hack or Yoshi and some mod). And yes, it was very n00b oriented. That's the point. It was a show your dad or grandma could watch and learn something from.
Attack of the Show is more like a cross between Slashdot and Fark, but clean enough for television.
Most of the content from G4/TechTV is just awful. It's too MTV-ish geared for zit-faced basement dwelling pre-pubescent kids who'll never get a date. You know, the kind of people that would think some stereotypical black guy with cornrows, bling and a funky nickname interviewing half naked asian pornstars in between showing "drift" races is "really awesome". TechTV wasn't like that. G4 has become that. Of course, G4 is owned by Viacom, which owns MTV - I believe. TechTV was owned by Paul Allen.
Most people who watch G4/TechTV don't do it because it's the best thing in the world. They watch it because it's all there is. What other tech shows are you going to watch on TV? You're not - there aren't any, unless you count a re-run of Monster Garage or a rare episode of Alan Alda hosting Nova (which is probably about my favorite non-fiction series ever on television).
Actually - I wouldn't even qualify Attack of the Show that way. That show actually is good. But everything else on the station is mediocre. Well, except for those cool 'documentary' shows about the history of gaming. That shit is pretty cool.
What I'd really like is to see some sort of a channel dedicated to learning. And then maybe a channel dedicated to science. Unfortunately, the two stations that used to be that are now "The Ladies Channel" that show nothing but "A Wedding Story" and "A Baby Story" and "A Makeover Story" and "A Dating Story" (I'm not shitting you - that's the lineup on The Learning Channel!)... and then Discovery.. I don't even know what that has these days. Probably just a bunch of send-person-out-of-town, redo-house, surprise-person shows.
This is probably the only good thing G4 has EVER done. I still can't figure out why they bought TechTV, since They killed nearly every show, and fired everyone from Screen Savers and changed the name. (Why not just make a new show and leave screen savers alone?) Oh, wait. I forgot Morgan Webb. Is her whiny, sacrastic ass really worth $300 million? Xplay is redundant, since G4 already had a game review show, and everyone hates Adam Sessler because, although he is just as whiny and sarcastic as Webb, he lacks the cleavage to hold the viewers attention and make them forget about how whiny and sarcastic they are. So basically all comcast wanted was her ablility to pull in the geek demographic while at the same time they "urbanize" the network with more hip-hop, "bling" and "whip" style. Hey, comcast! Wake the freak up and see how badly this channel is.
THIS is what happens when you let the marketing people run the programming.
"I forgot my mantra."