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Rehashed, Remade and Generally Stolen: There Are No More Ideas To Be Had On Television

By Courtney Enlow | Miscellaneous | April 14, 2011 |

By Courtney Enlow | Miscellaneous | April 14, 2011 |


So, I’m perusing my usual arsenal of sites I scan before finally deciding to write about Lindsay Lohan or Snooki again, and I come across this newsbit:

ABC Family has picked up an additional one-hour scripted drama, “Jane By Design.” … “Jane By Design” (formerly “What Would Jane Do”), a light-hearted drama, follows Jane, a teenager who lands a job at a hip retail company when they mistake her for an adult. Jane soon finds herself juggling life both as a regular high school student and as an assistant to a high powered executive in the cutthroat world of fashion… all while trying to keep her true identity a secret.

Does that sound familiar to anyone else? What do you think, Christina Applegate?

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My reaction exactly. What’s that, you say? Out ABC Family for very obviously rehashing a cultish early ’90s movie plotline? I’m right on top of that, Rose.

The thing is, basically taking the plot of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, slapping it on TV for the tweeners and not caring if anyone’s the wiser is barely an issue anymore. It’s practically creativity. Particularly when we get news like the recent announcement that Bravo has ordered eleven new reality series. And not a single one of them is the brunch-and-cocktails-only version of Top Chef I’ve been pitching for years.

Eleven. As in more than ten, as in the number of Doctors, as in a really fucking impossible jacks score. Eleven. Bravo was basically PBS up until the aughts. Now it’s got eleven different reality shows about silicon-injected housewives and “relationship experts.”

And it’s not just the basic cables. NBC, apparently desperate for a fraction of their ’90s magic, gave Paul Reiser a new show, premiering tonight. Paul. Fucking. Reiser. We as a nation said “no” to Paul Reiser years ago. We didn’t want him then. We don’t want him now. Unless he and Greg Evigan are still having a wacky time figuring out who Step By Step chick’s dad really is, I have no interest in him (and that show itself is about eight months from a reboot).

Everything’s just so unoriginal and retread and dull. I long for something new and original.

Wait, what?

Nevermind. Fuck it. Real Housewives it is. Midget wrestling is my literal breaking point.