Bloglander

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You’re a busy media consumer. You don’t have time to watch 13 hours of atelevision show before declaring it awful. That’s TV critics’ jobs.

Instead, just look for a few signs before lunging for the remote:

- Uproarious studio audience laughter following silly euphemism forurination.

- Men dressed in women’sclothing in a show that’s neither British nor airing on Bravo.

- Characters using the word “amnesia”

- Animal reaction shots

- Actors clearly chosen at random from the Abercrombie and Fitchcatalog

- More than three special guest stars

- Txt Spk or a numeral in the title

- In reality shows, the dedication of half the show to recapping what happened before the commercial breaks

- Dramatic scenes scored with bombastic music, comedic scenesscored with bouncy ain’t-this-quirky-music, and thoughtful closing montagesscored with the latest indie hits

- “You’ll never in a million years get me doing that!” followed immediatelywith a smash cut of them doing that.

- A Monica Lewinsky joke, of all things, in this day and age

- Voice-over narration that tells you absolutely nothing you don’t see onscreen

-  The mole, predictably, revealed to be the person you’d least expect

- Dialogue mostly about how characters feel, instead of dialogue catalyzed byhow characters feel

- “Created by Chuck Lorre”