Well, strictly speaking I may have seen an episode of Loveboat or two, but never a single episode of any other show he ever produced. Not even part of one. I'm not highbrow, or anything. I've watched plenty of I Love Lucy, Gilligan's Island, and I Dream of Jeannie, but Spelling's shows had such a whiff of spoilage and decay that, in most cases, I avoided them without even knowing he was responsible. They were just signals to turn the channel. Still, to this day, I don't know who shot J.R., nor do I give a rip.
And I'm not going to wax preachy about how Spelling helped destroy the medium, either. I had no trouble avoiding what he produced, so have to assume that if consumers chose it they got what they wanted. But I'd just like to register that the fellow wasn't a great man merely because he's now pushing up the daisies. Had he never lived the world wouldn't be any the worse for it. There are lots of people like that. And as part of my tendancy to pick on the dead let me also compare the gushy tributes to Spelling with the near silence from the media at James Coleman's death a few years ago. Had Coleman not lived the world would have almost certainly been a worse place, and the dysfunctional way we grieve (or fail to) is but another clue to how our mainstream media may be distorting, and even perverting, our society. But better to grieve something together, than nothing, I guess.
Well, we get what we want... which isn't necessarily a condemnation so much as a promise.