Thoughts on the Olympics

by Slate Quicksilver

Being thoroughly immersed into the Winter Olympics these past days has given me memories of past Olympics. What does that bland and formulaic sentence mean, exactly? It means that although I have enjoyed watching the Olympics so far, I am disgusted by NBC's programming. Deadspin already touched on it and Slate.com has another "Sap-o-meter" going, which keeps track of the mentions and side stories vainly trying to touch your heart. "Redemption" is up there, as is "Mom."

NBC still tries to manufacture drama, rather than just show the games. Showing 3 lugers, one of which being an American, does not count as "showing the luge event." No, we (America) is not a power in that sport, but maybe we'd like to watch it without 58 commercials and 3 human interest stories just to get you up to the 45 minutes of luge coverage so that you can say "We bring you the Luge." Perhaps, if we were a power, there would be less of a reason to watch because we would be used to the sport. OR... perhaps showing the event could inspire the next American hope!

But, no. NBC wants to continue to fail to pull at your jingoistic heart strings instead of give you substance. That's why hockey will be great. That's why speed skating was great on Saturday. It was continuous coverage of the sport. We happened to do well in speed skating (NASCAR on ice with pushing), as Apolo Ohno survived a Korean landslide (literally) and stole silver. That was amazing and great for TV.

It's not as bad as in 2002, when NBC showed the same snowboarding event 4 different times during primetime even though the Olympics were on our turf and there were several other events going on. But it certainly is a step back from 2008, or 2006 for that matter. We aren't telecasting from half the world away. We are 3 timezones away from the primary TV programming zone... not 13. Hopefully it will get better but it's probably too late as NBC has already pre-manufactured most of their human interest/emotional stories and they have to unload them somehow.