The Screen Savers

I think The Screen Savers was the best of the many ground breaking TV shows from TechTV, with personalities like Martin Sargent and Leo Laporte. I was absolutely shocked when it went off the air. Martin Sargent was hilarious. He was also a great interviewer, which is rare. Not only that, but Comcast also ruined the TechTV web site, when they became G4 TechTV. I remember finding so many great tips an articles on the original web site. I guess it took a lot of Comcast money to destroy a whole emerging market of tech TV shows. I wonder what they'll ruin next. I really miss this show. I proudly wear my Screen Savers t-shirt.

Sadly, the screen savers episode I saw yesterday has officially dashed my hopes of anything good ever coming from G4TechTV. They've officially killed the Tech in G4TechTV by ruining the last decent show from Tech TV. The show got terribly lame when Leo Laporte left. It was no longer comical or entertaining. It was basically lame tech news.

The news used to be the best part of the show because they'd mock a lot of the stories. Now the news is just "the news" and nothing more.

Now Patrick has left too, probably since he realized that the show was dying. And now Patrick has been replaced with someone who is not funny, and terribly annoying. This is just like what happened when Leo left the show, only the annoyance factor has more than doubled with the new guy. I'd rather watch re-runs of the old shows, than what G4TechTV is showing now.

A good analogy for what has happened with the merger of G4 and Tech TV is like saying Nickelodeon buys out ESPN. They tell both the kids and the sports fans they're going to keep the programming of both stations intact. Then they start replacing more and more sports shows with cartoons and kid game shows. Then they take what's left of ESPN's shows and put Nickelodeon characters and interactive junk for kids all over them. And before you know it, there are no sports left, and the channel's name has been changed back to Nickelodeon. With the closest thing to a sports event is some stupid show with kids competing for a plastic trophy.

I will miss Tech TV's superior programming very much, especially The Screen Savers. Maybe once people stop watching it, they'll re-join on a new channel.

Now that the network's name has been changed back to G4 and now this is called "Attack of the Show" you can easily see what their motive was from the beginning. Although, I think their new name for "The Screen Savers", "Attack of the Show" is rather symbolic for all of this, but they should call it "Attack of the Idiots".

This show started as a tech show. A very boring tech show, I might add. Then they screwed around with everything and monkeyed it all up. They eventually ended up with Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht as hosts. It was then that this show became absolutely brilliant and hilarious. I watched it religiously everyday. Until it happened.

One day without warning G4Tech TV fired roughly 60% of it's entire staff. Alex Albrecht, Yoshi, Dan, and television's Martin Sargent were among those let go in G4's most controversial move since acquiring Tech TV. The Screen Savers was butchered and hacked beyond all recognition. The audience was removed, the hosts were constantly changing. The skits were demeaning and the topics were lame and pointless. The added musical guests for no reason at all. These poor guys were playing to an empty room.

The show finally changed completely and became Attack of the Show. Which still sucks.

If you want to catch Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, they do a weekly pod-cast/video-cast called Diggnation at Diggnation.com (see Digg.com).

Kevin has another pod-cast/video-cast called Systm. (Systm.com), the Broken (the broken.com). And Alex is starting into movies and television.

You can look everywhere, but The Screen Savers on TechTV is by far the best tech show ever. An hour with this lovable crew will keep you coming back everyday for more doses. Even if you are not addicted to technology, this show is easy to get addicted to with its humorous views. It's like "Live with Regis & Kelly" for geeks. You'll get the latest tech news, first-hand looks at new software, hardware, prototypes, etc. Humor is clearly evident as the gang rags on themselves, others on the set, and occasionally Bill Gates. Highly recommended whether you are a gamer, a hacker, teen, single mom, whether you use Windows, Mac, Linux, you get the idea. 10/10.

This was one of my all-time favorite TV shows- it had great hosts, it was interesting, informative, funny, and wonderful to watch. The hosts were always energetic and helpful. The show included tech news covering subjects such as new viruses to watch out for, new innovations in the tech world, and all kinds of interesting issues concerning computers. Other segments of the show included basic quick tips from Leo explaining to the computer newbies how to do things like change your desktop wallpaper, or cut and paste text, a pricewatch segment where the hosts would look over the Sunday sales fliers and tell you if the deals were any good or not, a call-in segment where viewers could ask the hosts how to do something computer-related, or maybe help finding a helpful or entertaining website. There were also guests from time to time that were experts in particular fields, such as photoshop, viruses, hacking, computer design, etc. There was also Yoshi, the "Mad Modder" who would build wild designs for computer cases, or make unique and fun modifications to existing computer products, such as adding a fan and vent to a mouse to keep your palm cool. This was a wonderful show, and it is sorely missed by tons of fans- Unfortunately, when G4 merged with TechTV, the new people in charge decided it did not fit the format of the new company, and the show was canceled....