People have long complained about the quality of network television, but since I’ve been watching NFL football this fall, I’ve gotten to see more commercials for various TV shows than I used to see. Outside football season, the only time I usually watch network TV is for the morning news, when there are more car commercials than TV show commercials.

So I’ve noticed lately that the vast majority of prime-time shows on network TV involve people committing terrible crimes and people trying to catch them. Sure, there’s an element of solving a mystery and meting out justice, but there’s also a major element in every episode where you’re seeing the crimes being committed or the results of their crimes. I don’t care how much you enjoy the mystery element; what goes through your eyes into your head STAYS THERE. When you’re watching these scenes on TV that show people torturing or killing someone else, that’s imprinting itself on your mind and coloring your way of looking at the world. Unless you destroy brain cells, that will always be a part of you.

Sometimes these prime-time crime drama shows involve sex as well, either peripherally or as the core of the program. It seems like most of the newer comedies are like that also. The same is true of sex as of violence–fill your mind with it and it will color your relationships and your way of looking at the world.

The final result is that violence and sex are continuing to insinuate themselves into the minds of our people and the mentality of our culture. And we wonder why crimes are still high and why people treat each other poorly.

What *I* know is that there are plenty of commercials aired during football games that I don’t want my kids to see. More on NBC than FOX this year, but either way, I still feel obligated to distract my kids so they don’t see those commercials.

And with so many of these kinds of shows on network TV getting great reviews and high viewerships, there’s no reason for the networks to stop making them. Instead, there’s more reason to continue developing spinoffs, which will perpetuate the downward spiral of TV and society.