TV Is The Only Solid Medium of 2017

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post is fucking awful and was only written because we're having trouble coming up with content.

iHeartRadio killed radio.

SiriusXM was never supposed to be good to begin with, so we can't really blame them for hurting the state of radio.

Spotify and streaming services don't help either. But we sorely miss the days when Top 40 stations were at least 40% listenable. It's incredible thinking back to how angry people got over pop's dominance during the TRL era ('98-'01). It's possible that Top 40 stations never sounded better than during this 3-year span.

Top 40 in 2017 is unlistenable. We don't get how anyone listens to this. And here's the thing: You can say this in 2017 without making it sound like you're old and unhip, because the mid-2010s mark an unprecedented era of promotional oversaturation that enables fans of any genre to quickly and easily access whatever new music they find most interesting. It's not that tough.

iHeartRadio has Ryan Seacrest on every day. They insist on avoiding crossover hits whenever possible, even though they allow Imagine Dragons because post-civil-war-wave is still considered ok. When Kendrick or Lil Uzi Vert were charting top 5, they were nowhere to be found on Top 40, even though their presence would have given the format an exciting boost of variety that listeners desperately crave. Instead, it's 20 songs that all sound like Meghan Trainor: American Idol-style vibrato-crooning over depressingly bland un-memorable faux-empowerment anthems with no discernible hooks. The exceptions are rare and equally unexciting: "Despacito" is apparently ubiquitous, even though we would not be able to hum a single bar from this song. Bruno Mars' "That's What I Like" is not his hottest song, but at least it's vaguely memorable. For a song as painfully boring as Harry Styles' "Sign Of The Times," at least it stood out as something different. Taylor Swift's equally bland new singles should snugly fit throughout the next 12-15 months (the typical chart-life of her hits).

MTV has the ability to change all of this, but they're incapable of understanding their audience. There's no way in hell that the re-launch of TRL won't be cancelled by mid-November because they've completely lost all sense of how to properly engage actual music fans.

Even worse is the Modern Rock Radio format, which sounds exactly the same as Top 40 in 2017.

The only way this will ever change is with a competing alternative radio platform who insists on ignoring existing chart success. Radio playlists should always be chosen by music nerds.

Same goes for MTV. Without any real competition, the channel has no way to understand what its viewers really want.

Yeah anyway, Hollywood really sucks now also. Comic book movies suck. Disney sucks. Star Wars sucks. Franchises suck. Re-makes all suck. Legos suck. Emojis suck.

And despite all of this, the world of television has somehow grown to be more amazing than it has ever been. It's the only major big-money medium that's down to take risks.

This is all we really wanted to talk about. Here is every show we currently watch and every show we're currently excited to see:

Twin Peaks
The season just ended, and we forgot to watch all of it. No spoilers please.

Rick & Morty
Best show on television. They're not even halfway through season 3 yet. We hope it never ends.

Wet Hot American Summer
This went up on Netflix about a month ago. Need to review this.

Norm MacDonald Live
"The full hour." Norm loves Larry King.

WWE Monday Night Raw
WWE Tuesday Night SmackDown
This is a surprise. We did not expect to get into professional wrestling in late-summer 2017, and yet here we are...

Bojack Horseman
Season 4 went up today.

Adventure Time
The last episode of this season so far (apparently their last) aired on July 21, and it could return without warning at any time. There is typically no fanfare or large announcements regarding the beginning or end of their seasons, so it wouldn't surprise us if the show's final episode arrived without warning within the next six months.

South Park
Broad City
Was it NBC who used to designate Thursday night as "Must See TV?" We like that Comedy Central has been making an effort to bring this back. It's been a while since the world was offered a solid block of multi-show dopeness. Our hopes are up that South Park avoids political commentary for the remainder of their entire existence. Based on "The End of Serialization as We Know It," this seems to be the case. It was just barely a year ago when Bill Hader went to bat for Trey & Matt, ensuring fans that they still view every episode as if their entire reputation rests on its success or failure. Similarly, we're hoping Broad City understands why the Hillary episode bummed out so many people and consider shitting on Trump instead.

Nathan For You
Returning around late-September.

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Returning early October.

Stranger Things
How many music blogs will post about this when it returns in late October (not coincidentally just-in-time for Halloween)?

Cash Cab
Game Show Network has been airing re-runs every night at 11PM and 11:30PM. And apparently the show is returning later this year.