Terrence and Rocsi Leaves 106 & Park

More cuts at BET. Yesterday news broke that Tia Mowry and Pooch Hall were leaving The Game.  Today Terrence and Rocsi are exiting from BET’s 106 & Park.  What in the Clear Channel layoffs is this BET?  Seriously, there is nothing left to watch on the network (not that I watch anyway).  From what I read on Twitter, nobody watches Lets Stay Together and nobody plans to either. 

I can honestly say that I’m not saddened by the news of Terrence and Rocsi leaving 106 & Park.  I stopped watching 106 & Park in 2007, my sophomore year in college.  I could tell that the show was going in a younger direction and it was going to be corny.  The Freestyle Friday round used to be raw; contestants used to actually “freestyle.” (Remember Poster Boy and Jin…they are nowhere now but back then you thought they were the hottest thing out. But I digress.)  Over the years 106 & Park started to target teenagers and focus on everything else besides music.  Rocsi and Terrence fit for that purpose for a while but overall somehow the vision of the show got lost.  Of course, we can blame this on the exit of AJ and Free but it is really at the fault of BET.  Several of us in the black community that grew up with BET can see the change.  We went from Teen Summit, Rap City, Cita’s World, Video Soul, Planet Groove, to 106 & Park.  And when 106 & Park got too “commercial” BET gave us a knock off of Rap City Tha Basement called Da Deal.  Typical BET, that was later cancelled too.  Only thing left was to create two sitcoms and now that’s ruined. 

My question is, what else can BET do?  We’ve seriously seen them try everything.  They have tried game shows (remember Joe Clair and Toccara's show Take The Cake), sitcoms, docu-series, award shows, and they always abandon music shows.  The movies that they play repeatedly are not cutting it; we turn to TV One for all of that.  At this point every other music station is doing better than them. VH1 has us tuned into all of their reality shows. MTV stays young and fresh with their shows dedicated to just Hip- Hop and channels dedicated to Hip-Hop music.  Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that actually have MTV News on the regular.  And TV One, always brings back the best movies and TV shows from back and the day for our viewing pleasure.   

It’s clear that BET needs help. Somehow the network is worth millions but their programming sucks.  Their ideas suck.  Their marketing sucks.  Their decision making sucks.  Where do they go from here? (Follow me @eyediditmyway)

BET Cuts Cast Members From The Game

Rumors have been swirling all day that Tia Mowry and Pooch Hall have been “let go” from The Game.  I will be honest; I have only watched three episodes of Season 5.  It started off weird, and by the third episode I was done! The production and plot (or lack thereof) was all over the place.  The entire season just felt rushed. According to some tweets it has gotten better, but I digress. 

If this is true, BET is making a mistake.  All of the characters are interesting because they are all dysfunctional; but none are more interesting than Derwin and Melanie.  Most people will not admit it but throughout these five seasons there has always been something you can relate to in their relationship.  Derwin and Melanie’s relationship was real life, minus all the money.  We were with them through their infidelity, baby mama drama, career highs and lows etc.  So now BET is just going to take them away? First, Kelly now this?  Mark my words this show will be cancelled in a few.

Seriously, think about it. What other good shows does BET have? Don’t worry I’ll wait….

 (Follow me @eyediditmyway) 

The Game Season 5 Premiere

Can we say AWKWARD!!! The Season 5 premiere of The Game had everybody confused...I mean EVERYBODY! People on Twitter could not tweet fast enough.  The beginning presented itself with a couple of random situations.  Melanie and Derwin arguing about an abortion, Malik's new girlfriend unconscious in a garage, Jason having a shotgun wedding in Mexico?  I give the show credit though, while presenting all these random situations, they did a recap of how we got to this point with showing us "the previous 12 hours." Still, the show was all over the place!  Everything was random including the introduction of new characters.  They placed Brandy in the script like she was there before.  There was no introduction of where she came from, she's all of sudden in the script now! Through the last four seasons we know that the life of the characters on The Game can be chaotic, but these situations tonight just seemed unreal.  It's like they just occurred in order to have shock value for the premiere.  Did the directors and the producers want the audience to be confused? Well, mission accomplished! On the plus side though, they have managed to capture everybody's attention.  With all of the drama that happened in one hour, I can not help but admit that I will be tuning in every Tuesday to see what happens next.  (Follow me @eyediditmyway)