Repetition TV is turning our brains from mush into puree

It's not bad enough that quality, educational and intellect-stimulating TV shows are a dying breed, an alarming trend has developed for repeating salient facts within shows, sometimes up to 5 times within an hour. What is this? Are our memories assumed to be so poor that we need reminding every ten minutes what the show's about? Are most shows so short on content that repetition is the only way to make up the footage minutes? Or is it simply that in this world of increasingly short attention spans, where scanning has taken the place of reading, where automation has replaced effort, where deep thinking and contemplation is no longer encouraged, that repetition TV is the only way to keep our brains engaged?

I find this really frightening. I rarely watch television these days, but when I do, I often find myself the victim of repetition TV. It leaves my brain feeling so undernourished that I feel compelled to do something intellectual like puzzle-solving straight after to prevent the death of a few brain cells. But I wonder how many people feel the same way. I suspect most don't, and are happy to sit in front of the idiot box, brain cells dying by the minute. Certainly the prevalence of commercially successful vapid TV shows would suggest so.

Fashion dictates that trends will be reversed. When balloon skirts are in, it is practically ordained that pencil skirts will be in the next season. Let's hope that the season for dumb, repetitive TV shows is just that - a season with an end date. Let's hope that it will be replaced by a season of stimulating and brain-expanding shows that leave us feeling we've learned something and our brain cells have multiplied rather than died. Let's also hope this happens before the current kids' generation, who are growing up with vapid TV, isn't beyond redemption.