Friday, February 12, 2010. 7:20pm.
"So... for the first time in a very long time, those of us living on the West Coast of these United States of America are in the SAME TIME ZONE as the Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Finally, we get to watch events LIVE and see competition outcomes AS THEY HAPPEN. How cool that we won't have medal results spoiled on the internet hours... or even days... before we get to actually see them taking place! Sweet!"
— David Simmer II, getting ready to watch the last Winter Olympics
Friday, February 12, 2010. 7:35pm.
"FUCK YOU, NBC! FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!"
— David Simmer II, after realizing NBC time-delayed their Pacific Coast broadcast anyway
Saturday, July 28, 2012. 12:05am.
I am not a huge sports fan, but I admit to being a fan of the Olympic Games because there's just something wonderful about the way the world comes together to participate in them. And nowhere is this more evident than the Opening Ceremonies, where all the athletes are full of hope and dreaming of gold.
This year the task of planning the start of the games fell to one of my favorite directors, Danny Boyle, who is responsible for one of my favorite movies, Millions. He had the daunting task of following China's widely-praised and celebrated Opening Ceremonies, which would be enough to break most men. But Boyle decided that since nobody would expect him to top China's spectacle, he would just "do his own thing" and try to entertain people.
And entertain people he did.
The show was a wholly bizarre affair, but not in a bad way. I actually really enjoyed it. So congratulations, Mr. Boyle, on rising to the occasion with creativity and wonderment.
AP Photo/Morry Gash, Pool
And congratulations to NBC for fully living up to expectations and CRAPPING ALL OVER THE OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONIES WITH YOUR HORRENDOUSLY SHITTY COVERAGE!
I'm guessing the rest of the world's news organizations paid proper respect to the ceremonies and covered the opening in a dignified and complete presentation. This was not, of course, the way that NBC decided to go. "Dignified" and "Complete" are just not words that enter into their fucking heads.
No, we Americans go to see a butchered presentation that was fucking time-delayed (again) then interrupted by constant commercial breaks and laughably bad commentary from Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and (heaven help us) Bob Costas. The commentary was so bad that I wanted to turn the sound off, but then I would have missed out on the music, which was excellent. Except I couldn't really enjoy it because Lauer, Vieira, and Costas kept TALKING OVER IT ALL! And this brings me to the big question... WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?!?? I realize that your typical American television audience is about as intelligent as a box of rocks, but do they really need to be talked through a performance? And if you simply must open your stupid fucking mouths, did you really have to shit all over the spirit of the games by pointing out embarrassing, controversial, or otherwise derogatory things about the participating countries? What assholes.
And here I thought the pre-show interview where Bob Costas Ryan Seacrest embarrassed one of the gymnasts over her love of Justin Beiber was going to be the lowlight of the evening. Not even close. First Mitt Romney humiliates the USA with his non-stop parade of stupid fucking comments... then, because we haven't insulted the Brits enough, we decimate their Opening Ceremonies with NBC's profoundly bad coverage. But why stop there? Let's insult the whole world during the Parade of Nations! USA! USA! USA!
I realize that NBC has to pay the bills with advertising and be sure to pander to the lowest common denominator of their viewers... but that in NO WAY excuses what American Olympic fans had to suffer through tonight.
Saturday, July 28, 2010. 12:20am.
"FUCK YOU, NBC! FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!"
— David Simmer II, realizing nothing has changed since last time
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Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t try to find a bootleg website that is redirecting the BBC version of the closing ceremonies so I won’t have to suffer the same bullshit as last night’s “coverage”. Only highlight was the London Roller Girls & Mr. Bean.
As a US watcher, I couldn’t agree more that NBC’s (esp. Bob Costas) commentary was shitty beyond belief. US Olympic commentating has been pooping all over these broadcasts for decades. (So glad the celebrations included an homage to NHS; the NBC team’s shock and silence noted..Yay!). Went to Canada for two weeks for the 2008 games just to get away from “teh suck”. Very entertaining and witty pageant to get things going, happily overshadowing the inane commentating.
The review of NBC’s total fuck-up is right on. Yes, I am biased; but I look back to the days of BBC and commentary by Richard Dimbleby. He spoke in hush tones so viewers could hear what was happening and also let the video speak for itself
If it makes it any better, the commentary from the BBC wasn’t much better, although at least we got the whole thing live and uncut. And apparently you could disable the commentary using the red button service.
Move to Canada! I am visiting my parents and there is coverage on four channels (showing different events) and the commentators didn’t talk too much at all! Very impressed.
Yup. Coverage SUCKS. AGAIN. And, there’s no way to watch the stream on the website if you don’t pay for cable.
Fuck you, NBC. Fuck you right in the ear.
I agree wholeheartedly! By the by, it was Ryan Seacrest who mortified that poor gymnast, which is also stellar because I know when America thinks “Olympics”, they think “Ryan Seacrest”. Suck, suck, suck.
Holy crap! You’re right! THAT WAS RYAN SEACREST! That was soooo bad. He was all “I called Justin and he says ‘Good Luck’ to you!”… and I’m like… Ryan Seacrest has Justin Beiber on speed-dial?!? Ha!
That poor girl looked like she wanted to crawl under her chair when Seacrest started asking her about the Bieber. I wanted to throw my shoe at the TV…it was a true WTF moment in TV history!
I completely agree, but I didn’t even stick with it as long as you did. Just UGH. I figured I might be able to catch the better parts on Youtube or something, without the blathering going on.
HA! I should have read this before I left my comment on yesterday’s post. DITTO. I was so annoyed with the commentary and when they were explaining what everything meant? I think I would have enjoyed it more if they would have let me think for myself.