I really enjoy Tales of Ba Sing Se. It's really nice just watching them live their lives in the big city. It's somewhat a filler episode, but unlike the filler in Naruto or something, the plot still incrementally moves along and doesn't linger too long on any one character.

So, this is something I discovered last night that is just blowing my mind: for most of the past year, the channel TeenNick is showing only Henry Danger.

I cannot emphasize how literal I am being with that. Usually "a channel is only showing X" is an exaggeration, but for once, no. As far as I can tell, 99% of TeenNick's programming has been Henry Danger or its spin-off, Danger Force, for the past year. At most, there are brief "respites" where it will have a block with another show. For example, from July 27 to 31, it aired Zoey 101 from 11 PM to 1 AM. Two hours late at night, and then back to Henry Danger. Similar story with some new Nickelodeon show called Erin & Aaron: it showed periodically starting on April 22, and was apparently last aired on July 4.

Otherwise? Most days are JUST Henry Danger. Even Wikipedia lists Henry Danger and Danger Force as the only current shows. (Along with Nick News, which apparently only airs once a month.)

This is just honestly stunning to me. For those unfamiliar with TeenNick, it's a sub-channel of Nickelodeon. As far as I can remember, it pretty much never had original programming, but would air reruns of mostly live-action shows from Nickelodeon (either older finished shows or currently airing), some older Nickelodeon cartoons (Hey Arnold and Rugrats), or shows picked up through syndication (namely Degrassi, and more recently America's Funniest Home Videos and Wipeout for some reason...?).

What I'm saying is there is no reason for them to ONLY air this one, single show. It can't be blamed on any production issues, since it primarily airs reruns. TeenNick SHOULD have access to all the other shows from Nickelodeon's library, so it can't be a licensing issue either. As stated earlier, it aired episodes of a show that premiered this year on Nickelodeon. And Henry Danger is fairly recent, ending in 2020, so I don't know if it's a matter of residuals.

The only reason I can think of is that they want to push people to get Paramount+. Except even with that logic, this channel is currently a waste of money. Henry Danger has a total of 128 half-hour episodes (though I think some are part of a one-hour special, so Wikipedia counts 121 episodes...?), so that's basically 5 days' worth of content before airing the same thing again. That's not enough to justify a dedicated channel—not for viewers or advertisers.

From a cursory internet search, they average 66,000 viewers, with a peak of 99,000 on January 1, 2023. I can't imagine that would appeal to advertisers. I feel like the costs of running the channel outweigh any potential profits. This feels like it's just a money sink.

I just... I can't wrap my head around it. What the heck??

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Or just want to join me in boggling over this weirdness? This feels like it could be a symptom of cable's overall degradation (I've seen people comparing it to Cartoon Network's limited programming in recent years), but... It almost feels like this channel is being sabotaged? Deliberately set up for failure and closure? Just, I can't wrap my head around a year-long nonstop "marathon".

Mythbusters is back, but in a tweaked format.

Adam Savage fronts with a team of six young people. Jamie, Kari, Tory, and Grant are absent, only appearing in video flashbacks to the previous show.

Mythbusters with kids could have been horrific, but they've managed to make this entertaining and informative. They've increased the amount of STEM stuff. We see people doing a bit of math while planning something out. The kids are smart, and the show allows them to be smart while also being children. Adam is a great fit, being a big kid himself but also filling the role of a pseudo parent and giving friendly advice (often around safety, such as the tag strap used to manoeuvre huge steel plates).

The old show had a some problems. They'd have too many pre-break "what's coming next" and post-break "here's what happened before", and they'd chop up the myths being tested into tiny little bits. They still do that, but not nearly as much.

It's a fun, entertaining watch, and it's safe for families to watch together.

No spoilers, just a vague example.

A long time ago, I watched TRON: Uprising (2012). It's a really good Disney kids show that was unfortunately cancelled after one season or 19 episodes. It carries a rating of TV-Y7.

One thing that always really struck me about this show was that it's actually quite violent, but censored. We see gladiator fights where "people" are just smashed into little cubes signifying their death.

This is not at all a new concept, and I'm not saying we need absolute realism, but is there an imbalance to the amount of violence we show without "real" consequence? And in doing so, glorifying the action of violence itself?

We don't want to traumatize kids, but maybe we should, just a little. And for those saying that the age range for some shows are too young for them to understand, these shows have really adult concepts to begin with. In Voltron, for example, we're talking about galactic war, genocide, torture and misuse of good technologies turning them to weapons.

And though I posted in ~tv, in games especially when there's a violent action executed by the gamer. Games are rated a bit differently, and I'm not as familiar with children games, so hopefully another Tilderino will have more to add here.