Too much TV -- or am I just watching the wrong sorts of programming?

I used to think I watched far too much television and had way too many details of programming past tucked away in the crevasses of my mind.

But then I look at the public attention being paid these days to a couple of long-running programs that will soon go off the air – and I can’t help but wonder if some people would be inclined to think I don’t know a thing about television.

I’M REFERRING TO the shows “Game of Thrones” and “The Big Bang Theory” – both of which have been on the air for eight and 12 years respectively, but are now in their final days of existence.

But which also are a pair of programs I have to confess; I haven’t ever watched.

The latter show is intended to have its last episode of its first run come Thursday, while the final couple of episodes of “Game of Thrones” will air in coming weeks. By month’s end, both of these shows will be over and done with – except for their potential to live on in rerun-land.

And by “rerun,” I’m not referring to the heavy-set dancer from the 1980s show “What’s Happening.” I told you my brain is clogged with too much trivia about Rog, Dwayne (“Hey, Hey, Hey”) and Rerun.

I LITERALLY HAVEN’T seen “Game of Thrones” ever, and I haven’t felt the need to go out and binge-watch the show. That strikes me as far too much television to watch at once to try to catch up on the show so that watching the final episodes would make any sense.

As for “The Big Bang Theory,” I’ll admit to having watched a few episodes in recent weeks on the TBS channel. Watching the ongoing saga of nerdy college professors/science fiction fanatics (and the incredibly sexy chick who lives in the apartment across the hall) makes me think there’s far too much that has happened I’d have to catch up on to really be up to speed in comprehending Thursday’s finale.

Although I also wonder just how the Sheldon Cooper character (a theoretical physicist) has managed to survive for the dozen years of the show’s run. If I knew someone in reality who was so overbearingly pompous, arrogant and full of himself, I’d have to wring his neck.

While I’ve also heard from those who follow “Game of Thrones” about the combination of violent deaths (almost like “The Sopranos”), combined with the number of excessively beautiful women who strip down and have sex.

MAKING ME THINK that “Big Bang” and Kaley Cuoco’s “Penny” character (no apparent last name) had better stay away – or else she’s likely to find her own heavenly body (not the type her science neighbors/friends would study) impaled in all forms of gruesome manner.

Which also has me wondering just which long-running television hit of the future will I only discover some time around the year 2026 – or around the time that the World Cup soccer tourney will be staged on the North America continent. Even if it will somehow skip over any involvement with Chicago in the process.

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'Chicagoland' ratings that bad? Missing airplane overtakes documentary

I haven't commented on the 'Chicagoland' documentary being broadcast in eight parts by CNN because I've hardly seen it.

Will I forevermore be 'Part Two'-less?

I watched the initial part the day it was broadcast, but missed the second part when it aired Thursday night of last week because I had to work. Earning a living struck me as being more important at that particular moment.

BUT HEY, THIS is the 21st Century. These cable channels air programs over and over and over. Particularly something like this documentary, which CNN is making a big deal of.

It should have been no problem for me to catch a repeat airing some time during the weekend. In fact, it was scheduled to be a rerun both Saturday and Sunday nights, along with early Sunday and Monday mornings.

Believe it or not, I tuned in each and every time -- only to find out that it got pre-empted every single time. The latest trivial details of that airplane that went missing somewhere over the Indian Ocean were put on live every time.

Now before some of you get offended that I characterized it as "trivial details," keep in mind that I say so because we still don't really know what happened there in that incident that caused an airplane, its crew and passengers to suddenly vanish.

FROM WHAT I gather, officials now suspect that the pilots themselves were "in on it," so to speak. But what "it" is, we don't know.

So I really don't feel any more educated about that incident. And I still haven't seen Part Two of the documentary series -- which from the little blurb I read is supposed to continue the tales we in Chicago are all too familiar with.

You know -- 2013 was a particularly violent year, particularly in select South and West side neighborhoods, while there are those who think Rahm Emanuel is Satan incarnate for those inner-city neighborhood schools that were closed.

Although it seems that the most recent Chicago Black Hawks Stanley Cup championship was thrown into the mix in Part Two -- giving us a few moments of happiness while enduring an arrogant mayor and senseless violence.

THEN AGAIN, I also suspect that those people who most got into the whole hockey championship thing were the ones who were least affected by either urban violence or school closings.

I know that the reports indicated the ratings weren't so good for that first part of 'Chicagoland.' They were considered disappointing -- although better than the ratings that most CNN-aired documentary programs get.

Could it be that CNN has that little faith in this series that they're cutting their losses? Why keep re-airing a program that will only be watched by the random few like I who managed to miss it Thursday night?

Even the latest non-details that only slightly advance the missing airplane story were considered more interesting!

THERE MAY BE a few people out there asking why I don't just turn to my laptop computer and the CNN website to watch a program. Part of it is that I don't want to.

I'd rather watch a program on my television screen (26 inches), compared to that (16 inches) of my laptop. I really don't comprehend those people who think that a smartphone's dinky screen is at all suitable for watching anything on video -- not even some self-shot video of one's friends in some way acting stupid.

But there's also the fact that when I go to the website to try to find it, all I can find are little samples and snippets. Which is probably the only practical way to handle video off a television screen.

Definitely not ideal for viewing an hour-long program.

SO WHAT DO I think of 'Chicagoland?' By and large, I feel like it is telling me a story I already know -- because I (and many of you, I presume) have been following it in detail. It's not adding much of anything new to the mix.

I suspect most of those people complaining about it are the ones who want a program that indicts the reputation of Emanuel, and that anything that isn't super-critical will be considered a "whitewash" by them.

Such a review of what is happening in Chicago might be intriguing if it were helping to spread the story amongst more people.

Yet the fact that the ratings have been sub-par, and that it is becoming something not easily watched, makes me wonder if it's failing on those grounds, too.

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Programming ain’t free, no matter how much you want to dream it ought to be

Could the Chicago Cubs become the determining factor in the ongoing dispute between Tribune Co. television stations and DirecTV?

I honestly wonder if the idea of rabid Cubs fans angry that they can’t get their favorite ballclub’s Opening Day game Thursday against the Washington Nationals on television will be enough to scare the sides together into reaching an agreement.

LET’S BE HONEST. Chicago Cubs fans are not a rational breed to begin with. Who’s to say what they’re capable of doing if they’re denied the chance to see a game!

As for Chicago White Sox fans, their home opener isn’t for another week. Besides, the team’s games have shifted to other stations so heavily that a loss of access to WGN-TV won’t have as much of an impact as it would for Cubs’ ballgame broadcasts.

Are the television producer and distributor types anxiously trying to figure out a solution to their dispute – which caused the loss of Tribune Co.-owned television stations on DirecTV all across the country as of Sunday. On Monday, the fight escalated with a complaint filed with the FCC by DirecTV against Tribune.

Or are the two sides being juvenile and giving each other their best attempt at the “Evil Eye” to try to get the other side to break? My gut instinct (I don’t have any inside info) is that the latter is more likely.

WHICH IS WHY this is about greed on both sides – even though from what I can detect from reading assorted website comment sections, most people are all-too-eager to blame Mother Tribune for this.

Which isn’t the most rational of thoughts.

Because I actually find myself being disgusted with DirecTV, even though in the interest of disclosure I must say that I have no stake in this issue (I still rely on Comcast to have access to all the channels, which means I’m still getting WGN and the other channels impacted by this move).

This is a matter related to the fees that companies like Comcast or DirecTV pay to the television stations to include their programming amongst their offerings. Although after reading the anonymous Internet commenters, you’d think it was the TV stations paying DirecTV to have themselves included amongst those lineups of hundreds of television stations (many of which we don’t watch).

IN THIS PARTICULAR dispute, Tribune thinks its programming is worth a larger fee. DirecTV thinks it is paying too much already, and likely thinks that having to pay a higher fee will cut into their profit margin.

They’re following that old business adage, “Why pay more than you have to?”

Then again, that is the same attitude that many websites use – they think they’re entitled to use copy as their content for free. What’s going to happen to them when, someday, there is nothing for them to feed off of?

Which is the same mentality that ought to prevail on this issue.

WHAT DO THESE distributors think they’re going to be broadcasting over their systems if there aren’t any channels producing programming for them to carry?

I’m wondering where people think that such shows as “American Idol” and “Glee,” along with those baseball clubs that use Tribune Co. stations to broadcast their games, actually come from?

I always wonder when people will realize that their “entertainment” isn’t free, even if you did pay a significant fee for your television and another charge for the distributor.

That’s just for the connection. The programming is a different matter. Then again, I have always been the type who believed that the television should be free, and your ability to watch anything on it ought to be based on what you’re willing to pay.

THAT MIGHT BE a lesson that television viewers (at least those who rely on DirecTV) will learn in coming days.

And as for the dispute that is wrecking the viewing habits of some individuals, a part of me wants to tell them to go read a book, or go for a walk or do something else with their lives.

Heck, as for those Cubs fans, maybe you should go to the game on Thursday if it is so important to you to see the Nationals start out their season with a victory. For what it’s worth, StubHub.com indicated they still had about 2,000 seats available for that game.

And you’ll even get a refrigerator magnet schedule for the 2012 Cubs season.

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