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The Games Are Over
Aug. 26th, 2008 08:48 amI'm probably writing this way too late, but system problems at work yesterday made the whole day a total bitch, and I never did get around to writing down my final Olympic thoughts, so here goes.
First, credit where credit is due, NBC did do a better job of showing all of the different sports this year - if you had cable; and you were willing to stay up into the wee hours. Badminton? Sure. Wrestling? Yes, a day after it happened, but yes. Where NBC used to show a more diverse lineup of sports in their latenight segment, this year they just placed it all on cable. There's still the bias of showing events that American's are in, but not as much as NBC Primetime.
NBC does a lot to protect it's affiliates, holding many of the big sports for primetime. This year was very odd because some events would be taking place live in the morning, Beijing time, and others would be held back from the night before. Of course everything was highly edited. It's odd when they are covering just a small group of competitors and suddenly you find that someone has taken a medal and was never covered.
Lets reduce the amount of beach volleyball. it's an awful sport and only serves as a way to get scantily clad women on TV. At least they aren't underage, but still. They barely show the Decathlon, the classic Olympic sport, won by an American even, but they show hours of people in the sand.
The second week of the games just fell flat, not only because the Michael Phelps show was over, but because the US wasn't doing so well in the running events (we did fine in the field events, but they don't focus on that), that NBC seemed a little bitchy about it. The games seemed to run out of steam after swimming and gymnastics were over.
Lastly, the closing ceremonies certainly didn't bring the excitement and the wonder that the opening ceremonies did. It didn't help that NBC tried to stretch out a 90 minute event into 3 hours with tons of flashbacks. The large tower just made the floor show look like the worlds largest showing of Chinese Acrobats at Six Flags. The fireworks still amaze, though.
London really came in and rattled the whole thing with the rock-and-roll double decker bus. Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page? Talk about a change in tenor at the ceremonies. They really livened up the ceremony, and then China couldn't really comeback because their pop-spectacular features government friendly songs sung by Jackie Chan and a group of people you never heard of. "Beijing, I Love You" is no "Whole Lotta Love."
For the 2012 games London should just load up the entire opening ceremonies with world-class pop acts, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys, Spice Girls, and whoever is hot at the time. Screw the thing of we have a billion people, just show that a small island has put out a ton of pop culture over the last 50 years or so and have that as your opening ceremony. Done.
Hey, note to the Republican convention guys, if you also thought the second week of the Olympics was too much, so will the second week of political stump speeches. People are already tired of presidential politics this year, and will be even more so next week when your giant American flag is up in St. Paul.
Otherwise, I am sunburned again. I can't seem to use the aerosol spray cans of sunscreen without missing some very large swaths. I have stripes right now.
Off to work, from what I hear the software problem we had yesterday still isn't fixed, so it should be quite a day.
First, credit where credit is due, NBC did do a better job of showing all of the different sports this year - if you had cable; and you were willing to stay up into the wee hours. Badminton? Sure. Wrestling? Yes, a day after it happened, but yes. Where NBC used to show a more diverse lineup of sports in their latenight segment, this year they just placed it all on cable. There's still the bias of showing events that American's are in, but not as much as NBC Primetime.
NBC does a lot to protect it's affiliates, holding many of the big sports for primetime. This year was very odd because some events would be taking place live in the morning, Beijing time, and others would be held back from the night before. Of course everything was highly edited. It's odd when they are covering just a small group of competitors and suddenly you find that someone has taken a medal and was never covered.
Lets reduce the amount of beach volleyball. it's an awful sport and only serves as a way to get scantily clad women on TV. At least they aren't underage, but still. They barely show the Decathlon, the classic Olympic sport, won by an American even, but they show hours of people in the sand.
The second week of the games just fell flat, not only because the Michael Phelps show was over, but because the US wasn't doing so well in the running events (we did fine in the field events, but they don't focus on that), that NBC seemed a little bitchy about it. The games seemed to run out of steam after swimming and gymnastics were over.
Lastly, the closing ceremonies certainly didn't bring the excitement and the wonder that the opening ceremonies did. It didn't help that NBC tried to stretch out a 90 minute event into 3 hours with tons of flashbacks. The large tower just made the floor show look like the worlds largest showing of Chinese Acrobats at Six Flags. The fireworks still amaze, though.
London really came in and rattled the whole thing with the rock-and-roll double decker bus. Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page? Talk about a change in tenor at the ceremonies. They really livened up the ceremony, and then China couldn't really comeback because their pop-spectacular features government friendly songs sung by Jackie Chan and a group of people you never heard of. "Beijing, I Love You" is no "Whole Lotta Love."
For the 2012 games London should just load up the entire opening ceremonies with world-class pop acts, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys, Spice Girls, and whoever is hot at the time. Screw the thing of we have a billion people, just show that a small island has put out a ton of pop culture over the last 50 years or so and have that as your opening ceremony. Done.
Hey, note to the Republican convention guys, if you also thought the second week of the Olympics was too much, so will the second week of political stump speeches. People are already tired of presidential politics this year, and will be even more so next week when your giant American flag is up in St. Paul.
Otherwise, I am sunburned again. I can't seem to use the aerosol spray cans of sunscreen without missing some very large swaths. I have stripes right now.
Off to work, from what I hear the software problem we had yesterday still isn't fixed, so it should be quite a day.
