#RASP - Rant Around Several Paragraphs #3: Rihanna, Bates Motel's Final Season Premiere, and Her Birthday

So, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the idea Rihanna is in yet another acting gig that coincides with something I've come to love or find interest in. She's not made many songs that I like to begin with (only one of which is actually in my music collection), and I've not been a fan of celebrity hype in general (something that seems to follow her around 🙄). She's a fair actress, so I am not in the outrage camp some people are in of "HOW DARE THEY?!", even though I am a little miffed they'd chosen her.

Looking at my IMDb widget and seeing it's her birthday anniversary today, it had me thinking whether putting the Bates final season premiere on today was intentional or a coincidence. I'm leaning towards intentional (I'm about to expand on the moreso reason for my thoughts) partly because of the Holmesian thought that "rarely is the universe so lazy".

1) People on the Bates Motel Facebook page have chimed in that naturally they bring her in to bring more people to watch a show that has had ever-declining ratings. This may work to a degree, but other shows I've noticed they do this to, it usually literally only lasts the first episode (thinking right now of American Horror Story: Hotel in their plastering Lady Gaga all over the place).

They may want new people to try exposing them to other A&E shows' commercials they're likely to bombard us with tonight (well, those who're watching live, one of whom won't be me because I'd cut the cord months ago) along with the product commercials they're equally likely to overdo ad-vomit-inducing-nauseum. This may be in hope they'll stick around to watch those other shows (even though it probably won't work; remember how they'd tried and failed to entice us to watch that lackluster Chloë Sevigny drama Those Who Kill?).

They may just be experimenting to see if the celebrity hype factor can influence viewership over a longer term (because maybe it may not be as much of a one-off as I'm predicting it will), and use that information to try this again across their networks. They may even be trying to see if it's worth keeping Carlton Cuse around, since he's brought quite a few series to A&E (but I'm sure he's getting more expensive to have around with that tenure).

2) Having the premiere on with Rihanna's birthday might interact with that celebrity hype thing because her fans will probably be flooding her Twitter account and Facebook page with celebratory wishes and lots of views. She's more than likely put on both those places mentions she's going to be on tonight's episode, and so the masses who follow her, for the greater part, will probably do what she asks. Thinking about it, too, there would be the eyes on her IMDb page too, seeing that screen credit.

3) There was one Facebook reply that off-handedly mentioned she was a fan of, if not the series itself, Psycho and/or Alfred Hitchcock. It could be a thank-you to her in passing.

But then, yes, it could be as much a coincidence as the final season premiere of yet another one of my now-cancelled favorite series Tyrant was in that it premiered on the last day of Ramadan (the series taking place mostly in a fictional, majority-Muslim nation).

But rarely is the universe so lazy.

Am I overthinking this? What do you think? Do you agree? Is there another reason there might be? What do you think of her being Marion Crane?

We'll see what the next weeks' ratings show.

Sometimes I Wonder if I Waste My Time

So, I'm a watcher of sorts. I've always felt my purpose in life was to observe and record, when possible, somehow elements of humanity. This can be in reading, watching things, listening to music, and hearing people's stories.

One if the most frustrating ones have been TV shows of late.

So, a brief, and probably incomplete, list of shows I've gotten into within the last 5 years is:

• Tyrant

• The Whispers

• Once Upon a Time

• Manhattan Love Story

• Selfie

• The Messengers

• The Tomorrow People 

• Reign

• The Returned

• Helix

• Archer

• American Horror Story

• Bates Motel

• Better Call Saul

• Dominion 

• Scream Queens

• Teen Wolf

• The 100

• The Librarians

• Stalker

That makes 45% of the shows I've gotten into of this list cancelled. And it seems it's getting more frequent than not that I pick up a show and they cancel it, within the season, shortly after the run, or by the next season.

A couple of them, I'd pretty much figured they'd cancel, but others I'd held out so much hope for.

Only for them to dash dem weh.

Forty-five percent is pretty bad. Hopefully my odds improve this season.

[accent]Stupid Americans[/accent]

Piers Morgan and CNN Plan End to His Prime-Time Show
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/business/media/piers-morgan-and-cnn-plan-end-to-his-prime-time-show.html

Okay, yes, I'm bi-national. I'm a British Citizen who received his US naturalization in 2006. I've grown up in the United States primarily, and being an anthropologist have observed all the little things that make United States Americans proud and whatnot, as well as what leaves others wanting more.

This, however, is an example of that. Americans don't want to accept anything that makes them think about anything other than the United States except for when it's convenient, trendy, or what "everyone else" is doing. So, when Piers Morgan confronts them obliquely, debating as he does or, apparently as this article states, doesn't cover what "Americans want to hear", shutting him down is a problem.

Accepting that shutting him down because he runs his show the way he does and that "everyone" flees to other networks because of that is a problem. Full disclosure: I've never watched Piers Morgan Tonight. I've never been one for talk shows period, so pretty much any of them I've stayed away from, daytime or primetime. I, therefore, have no idea if the show is (or was) any good. My judgment lies solely with the article's claims. I'd like to believe my knee-jerk feelings have some merit, though: Americans on a majority do not want to hear about things that make them change their minds.

This is sad. This is why this country is so messed-up, and this is why it makes me smile sometimes when other countries put this one in its place. The United States' priorities skew completely waywardly most of the time, and yet it expects the rest of the world to bend over and take it whenever it wants a piece. If Piers Morgan helped the United States in some part during his tenure to see that there are things beyond being the third-largest country (debatably) and the third most populous, that there are people dying *everywhere* while the majority of US residents were in their homes watching a bunch of people vie for twoish-pound pieces of metal medallions, then bully for him.

Yes, there are other countries, mostly European, that just about force their naturalized denizens to become French (or Italian, or German, or whatever) culturally and shun them if they don't adapt and make 100% a part of them all the trappings of Frenchness just as this article asserts CNN and the viewing public expected of Piers Morgan. If the United States is such a world leader, then shouldn't it lead with the example that some Britain-born dude on a US prime time show can be what he is, and shouldn't we "enlightened" Americans accept him for it? Yes, it's ratings. Yes, this is idealistic.

But this is why this country is filled with stupid people.