Looking back and groaning

Due to a new TV-station I get over cable (not that new, but newer than most others) I've been able to watch old TV-programs I was very interested in about 15 years ago. There's a lot of them, most prominently maybe "The A-Team", "Air Wolf" and "Knight Rider" (yes, I was an action-fan when I was a teenager). What I found out rather quickly after starting to watch those series is this: they suck.

This, of course, made me wonder what I saw in them. As I was a loner at school, I surely didn't watch them to be considered 'cool'. There's other series I watched because everybody did (like "Beverly Hills, 90210" or "Melrose Place"). But why did I watch those action series with talking cars (though I still think K.I.T.T. would be a good car for me), modern helicopters and modern day mercenaries always on the run?

I think part of it was the humour in there. Most comedy-programs were late-night (and I still was underage and in school then), so I had to find comedy wherever I could.

Sure, I've also always liked to watch adventurous stories (which is why I'm a fan of "Relic Hunter" for various reasons). I liked well-coordinated stunts.

What those series miss a lot (so do "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Melrose Place", but for other reasons, maybe) is good stories. And that's what I'm usually after.

Was I too easy to please as a teenager?

I surely never pined after David Hasselhoff - or any other actor - while I was a teenage-girl. I liked the car, but I wouldn't have minded seeing someone else (maybe a woman) driving it. (After all, K.I.T.T. could park in alone, so what would have been the problem?)

I wasn't a fan of muscles either (and still can't stand them), but I liked watching B.A. of the A-Team.

And I've never been a fan of the military, but nevertheless I watched "Air Wolf".

So, was everything bad then? (Which probably would mean that the series today are much better?)

Surely not, there's a lot of trash produced today as well. And there's a lot of TV-series produced years or even decades ago which are a lot better. I like the first "Star Trek"-series much more, even the second one ("The Next Generation"), my interests started to decline after then. The same goes for other series I still like (both animated and real-life).

I guess it just was because I was young and a lot easier to impress then. Or the many developments in special effects have spoiled me by now. Whatever it was, today I look back on those series, remember how much I loved watching them ... and groan.