Attack of the Show!

The hosts of this show are terrible... I've sat through the show multiple times and not even cracked a smile. These people just aren't funny. Plus they are just unpleasantly awkward and impossible to relate to. The skits are horrible, only made worse by their terrible acting and their capitalization on sex. I'm not biased by having seen Screen Savers as other people have mentioned... I am young and love gadgets and stupid random humor... But this just simply a bad show and I don't get why it is still in a prime time slot. Their short bits during commercials of other shows are pretty good because they are informative and short... But I change the channel when Attack of the Show actually comes on.

As a flagship show, Attack of the Show (AOTS) is endemic of the larger fall of G4 TV; it is a show (and a station) that has fallen so far that it parades sex to try and cover its glaring faults. Its predecessor, The Screen Savers, was a venue for troubleshooting technology problems and scouting out the latest and greatest in technology. It was a nice show with a likable staff and it was fun to see some of the modding and other experiments the crew could put to together.

The acquisition of TechTV by G4 bothered some longtime fans of the station, but early returns were actually promising. The emphasis on gaming was a nice addition and I really enjoyed a lot of the coverage of E3 and other big entertainment events.

Unfortunately, AOTS now stands as but a shell of its former self. Those overseeing the channel have shifted the focus of the channel away from technology and gaming and toward anything that might elicit drool from young adult men. The result is that AOTS spends as much time parading Olivia Munn or touting the adult film industry as it does covering games. It is so bad it is practically unwatchable.

While some may get puerile joy out of this sort of thing, those who genuinely enjoy gaming may wonder where the good coverage went. Equally troubling, young gamers who might tune into G4 thinking their getting gaming - that active gaming group between 10-15 - are instead being fed things aimed toward a more mature audience. On a channel like HBO or Cinemax, things like that are expected. On G4, it's tragic.

At least SpikeTV, another male-aimed channel, has good programming like CSI. AOTS, and G4, has very little good left to offer.

Too bad, really.

This show is one of my favorites. I love coming home and sitting down to watch AOTS. Great, funny and informative show. The one thing I agree with viewers is it's a bit to inappropriate at times. But there are times when that can be funny. The hosts I enjoy. Kevin is hilarious whenever he torments Candace, who always has something to comeback at him with. Watching The Feed and Gadget Pr0n are my two favorite segments of the show. I am a total nerd (@ times) and watch for new hardware or news about my favored companies. But other than that I don't pay much attention to anything else on the show unless it catches my interest, like humor. Overall "I give this a 4 out of 5" (9/10)- Chris Hardwick.

It is true the show and the very station has become somewhat mediocre in comparison to the former line up. Popular and gamer geared shows such as "Judgment Day" and "Portal" are replaced by re hatches such as "Cops" and "Unbeatable Banzuke." But the reason why in my opinion is much different than trying to sex up the network. Its very easy to point the blame at the "sex sells' theory that plagues the televisions world, but i think the change is a result of big business taking over a small network. The network use to be great, i stayed turned in daily in fact, but the great things they did costs a lot of money. Thus to obtain more money they need more high name sponsors, and with sponsorship comes changes, usually negative one.

Now I admit the change on cheat from Corey Rouse to a sexier ex cheerleader Kristin Holt(Adams) was a bit of a sex sells ploy, but there are still some good things about the network. The much debated attack of the show does focus on sex a lot at times, but what is it that gamers do with their spare time, i believe the concept that gamers do nothing but play games and get fat is absolutely retarded. I have a life and the new content to the network attracts the non hardcore audience. Now my girl will watch G4 with me because it just doesn't talk about games anymore. Now by no means am i saying that the changes are good, but they are not all bad, and you can't fault them for trying to bring in new viewers. So my stand is one of neutrality.

This show is what happened to The Screen Savers after G4 got its hands on it, taking it from a useful source of computer-related information to a show that had as its high point the shoving of a miniature web server up someone's posterior.

As G4's ratings plummeted, they moved away from their original target audience, gamers, to generic hormone-driven young men, adding eye candy to the staff and a sex advice segment. Now even the gamers who applauded the show initially are turning away in disgust. I look forward to the show's, and the network's, overwhelmingly overdue and well-deserved demise.

UPDATE: O frabjous day! AOTS is over, as is G4 as a whole. In a single lapse into worthwhile viewing, there was a Newhart-style ending with Leo Laporte telling Patrick Norton what a weird dream he had.