NOTHIN' TO CELEBRATE
TBS shows fans watching what viewers want to see
G IVEN what we’re often shown — or not shown — during events’ biggest moments, ever wonder what the same TV directors would choose to shoot for their home videos?
Perhaps, on Christmas morning, just as Junior bolted down the stairs, we would see a cut to crowd shot — the gold fish tank in the living room.
Or, at Junior’s second birthday party, when, just after Junior blew out the candles, we would see a shot of the front lawn — taken from the roof.
To that end, TBS’ nowcompleted coverage of the MLB postseason was, again, flabbergasting for its senselessness, for its failure to recognize then show what the heck was going on. And right to the very end ...
Thursday night when Tigers’ first baseman Prince Fielder caught the fly to sweep the Yankees from the ALCS, TBS chose to spend a total of 3 ( three) seconds on the field, watching the Tigers rush to celebrate, before forcing us to board the last train to Dumb town.
TBS next gave us an overhead shot, taken from a blimp. It was such a worthless shot it could have been file footage or been taken in the third inning.
Next, TBS cut to a crowd shot, another worthless view given that the crowd was watching what we wanted to watch. Again, for what this shot was worth, it could have been canned, lifted from the 1999 Ohio State-Michigan game.
TBS briefly returned us to the field to show some of the celebration, but then it was off again to two more worthless blimp shots and four more worthless crowd shots.
What’s particularly exasperating about such fancy but senseless abandonments of the primary story — and every network, to varying degrees, is guilty — is that there are hundreds of thousands sports fans watching, fans with zero TV experience, who could have and would have done a far better job.
Pick one. Any one. He or she would know to stick with an onfield celebration. As a sports fan, he/she would know to show millions of other sports fans — and all viewers, for that matter — what they logically would want to see and expect to see as it’s happening!
Oh, well, Willie Mayes.