Because We're Too Lazy To Do New Ones

Okay, so now you watched a show for a long time. Long enough to declare yourself a veteran viewer, a legitimate fan. You see a commercial advertisement for a new episode of that show, and you can’t wait to watch it. You find that the “new” episode consists of compilations from previous ones, spliced together with new footage.

Those episodes, my friends, are what’s called “clip shows”. These shows appear when you know that the cast & crew decided to give themselves a break, and then they feed us swill like “clip shows”.

Why not just air a rerun? That’s much better.

This happens with animated shows, too. Case in point: “Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles” aired not one, but TWO clip shows. I suppose though, that they can be excused because of the costs of creating and producing an entirely new computer-animated episode. And, the studio won’t get up off of any additional cash to make more episodes; they’re tending to other, more lucrative franchises. If new episodes were to be made, the creators had better raise up the funding for additional episodes.

Other shows that engaged in producing “clip shows” were “Eek! the Cat”, “Beetlejuice: The Animated Series”, and “ReBoot”, just to name a few. Sometimes, series that have ample budgets engage in this practice, and that’s when you know that they’re doing it because they’re really tired of making new episodes vs. budgetary reasons.

There are too many shows aired either on cable or on one of the five big networks. And, we have remotes. We can always change channels, and watch shows that have more respect for the viewer. Or, if there’s absolutely nothing on, then we can just pop in a good ol’ movie (if we have DVD or VHS players--most of us should have either one). Either way, we should never settle on being entertained by “clip shows”.

“Clip shows”, I believe, should be abolished. Because fans deserve more than that. If you’ve made a contract to entertain them, then you’re bound to it day and night. The creators have an obligation to please their audience by making episodes of the highest possible caliber. Show business means “show”ing something new, not going back to your library and clipping together stuff we’ve already seen. Because, as the title of this article expressly implies, that’s just being lazy.

Go To Page: 1