Of course, you could simply just turn the damn idiot box off, but that never seems to occur to us. We’re too busy gawking at the train wrecks in hopes that we don’t miss something particularly juicy.

But this is the most gawdawful thing I’ve heard in a long time. But it isn’t really surprising.

Last week I spent several hours on the phone trying to find out what company currently owns the rights to the 1970s film Murder By Decree. I was wanting to use a still photo from the movie in an article in The Journal of The Masonic Society. In my search across four countries and six companies (none of whom could grant me permission to reprint the photo), I discovered that several mega-media corps actually have an “Office of Remake Development.”

So if this “new” miniseries is as “relevant to Modern Audiences” as the recent tripe-laden remake of The Andromeda Strain was, I’m guessing I’ll be throwing objects at the TV for all six hours.

Jeez. AMC. Where did Bob Dorian go?

It’s funny how certain things become etched on our brain, and we’re always comparing the “new” version with the “original.” A TV show, certainly, but how often do we do the same thing with other aspects of our lives? Are any biscuits better than the one’s Mom used to make? Is the second Darrin Stevens (Bewitched) better than the original? Isn’t the ice cream now not as good as the stuff we had when we were kids?

And don’t even get me started on Dr. Who. I happen to like the latest one (David Tennent) best of all.

I wonder, too, if this isn’t exactly the sentiment that we accuse our beloved Past Masters of displaying when they shake their heads and mutter “Doesn’t anybody know how to do ritual anymore?”