--- Wednesday, December 29, 2004

the screen savers...nope.

Permalink: 12/29/2004 01:33:00 PM | << Back Home

everybody was quick to bash the G4TechTV merger when it first went down, but I held off before the results were clearly visible. I decided I'd give the new hosts a shot, check out the changes, and then make appropriate comments a little later on. Here's my rant.

I wouldn't call myself the most diehard TSS fan, but it wasn't a bad show. I remember buying a ReplayTV just to tape the episodes (and a few other things as well). I actually found out about ReplayTVs from TSS. funny.

here's a history... if you know all about the G4 merger and that kind of thing... skip down to my rant.for those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, TSS is a show on TechTV (now called G4TechTV) that generally has gadgets, tech tips, and answers live calls.. that kind of thing.

this show used to be great, but I have to say that even I've stopped caring about it. the show has a lot of history, though. for a while it was filmed in "the basement" set, before it was moved to san francisco. for those of you who don't know the story, a few months after the brand-new set G4TV "merged" with TechTV to form G4TechTV. G4 realized that they couldn't have a TV network *just* about gaming and decided that merging with TechTV was a good call.

I think that the merger was a good idea in theory, but I could not believe the results. First of all, it seemed like G4 became the controlling party in the situation and decided that it was going to get rid of most of the decent TechTV programming and force the G4 stuff upon us loyal viewers. First of all, they torn down the *new* TSS set and build *another one* in Los Angeles and moved the show there. They fired the entire TechTV staff with a few exceptions... mostly being some members of the cast of TSS.

TSS remained normal for a while with the new co-host Alex Albrecht (working with the remaining Kevin Rose, who took Leo Laporte's place after he left the show....I never really liked Leo, and it seemed like Kevin knew a lot more than he did anyway), but later on they decided to fire Alex. Why? No idea. Kevin Rose decided that he didn't want to host the show anymore... so G4 brought in these two newbies: Kevin Pereira and Chi-Lan Lieu.

Okay, here's where my rant starts. So everyone was bashing Kevin Pereira which I thought was kind of sad, but unfortunately for both of them, the new hosts suck. I'm sorry, but they do. Chi-Lan Lieu is a dumbass and she has a really annoying voice... and Kevin Pereira just isn't TSS material. Like I can't say it any better than that... it's just really sad. I think Kevin Rose and Sarah Lane should host the show and those guys should work in the nook or something. That would be a lot less crappy.

Now that the live audience has disappeared... the show seems completely dead. I have no idea why they ditched the audience, but it's gone and so is the show's charm. The new hosts have got to go. I feel so bad for the TSS veterans like Yoshi and even Dan Huard who just got fired like that. It sucks! I would have been mad pissed if some new tool CEO comes in and just bounced everyone like that.

The G4 programming sucks. TechTV's was *much* better. As far as I know, The Screen Savers and X-Play are the only shows still in production that are left over from the TechTV days... even though TSS is totally different. What was the point of this merger? G4's attempt to gain viewers failed miserably. Now I have two channels on my cable box with the same crap. I don't give a crap about gaming except for an occasional PS2 title... and now I have to listen to morons talk on shows like Judgement Day... which in my opinion is nothing but a crappy spin-off of X-Play with no hot Morgan Webb on it.

In conclusion, the balance at the old TechTV was good... one or two shows about gaming (X-Play), and then the rest about other "techy" things like gadgets, tech tips, live calls, and cool stuff. Now, we've got another channel full of crap gaming footage. I mean come on... they have a show where all they do is show footage of gameplay. That's just so stupid. What a waste. TechTV RIP.

CURRENT PROJECTS

+ Mobile17 (smashTheTONES)

+ Whitesoap

+ 73git

+ DiggSuggest

LATEST PHOTOS

more photos..., or YouTube? / Vimeo?

QUICK SEARCH

RSS FEED (READ ME)

Subscribe via RSS?

ABOUT ME

I am a 20 year old web developer
from Boston, MA.

CONTACT?

E-Mail: Click Here.
AIM: smashTheQUBE
Be specific when you first contact me. I don't usually respond to just hey/hi/hello.
GTalk: smashTheQUBE

MY LAST.FM