The new network dramas must be very dumb!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013

Even Dowd says they’re too shlocky: Luckily, nothing of significance is going on in the world today. There is no issue that needs explanation or clarification.

We know that because Maureen Dowd is writing about the major networks' new TV programs. Apparently, these shows are so dumb that even Dowd has noticed. And the famous Pulitzer winner is just plenty annoyed:

DOWD (5/22/13): It turns out that Washington isn’t the only place where ideas go to die.

TV honchos cling to outmoded programming traditions even as many younger Americans, gorging on a movable feast of platforms, are losing the habit of turning on the TV, and even as top talent peels off to enjoy the freedom of cable and imaginative hubs like Amazon, Hulu, YouTube and Netflix, which is crackling with “House of Cards” and a fresh season of “Arrested Development.”

Networks still prefer to play it safe with likable characters, not darker ones like Tony Soprano, Walter White, Don Draper, Nicholas Brody and face-chewing zombies. Watching the derivative and uninspiring fare served up last week by the networks during their previews to woo advertisers, I was flummoxed at the lack of creativity and modernity.

Dowd spends her whole column listing the problems she finds with various network programs. The Blacklist is “yet another variation on Hannibal Lecter.” Back in the Game is just a knock-off of “Bad News Bears!”

Dowd’s headline is “Serving Up Schlock,” a topic on which she’s the world’s leading expert. When your press corps displays these intellectual horizons, you have basically ceased to have am upper-end press corps at all.

It’s conventional to slam the press corps for its various alleged biases. But above it all, to the depth of its soul, your upper-end “press corps” is empty, fatuous—dumb.