TV Surveillance

For those of us graduating this weekend, the last four years — or five or six — have surely been eventful, both personally and educationally. But as we depart, let’s not forget the third most important facet of all our lives: television. 

Considering this issue is supposed to serve as a makeshift time capsule commemorating our time on campus (I think), I want you to remember all the watershed moments in television just as you remember all the glorious two-dollar Tuesdays. And so, from August 2006 until today, here are the most important things to remember about television during your time at IU.

September 25, 2006: “Heroes” debuts and at first convinces people that it knows how to tell serialized stories better than “LOST.” Seriously. No series gets made fun of more in WEEKEND between 2008 and 2010.

October 3 and October 11, 2006: “Friday Night Lights” and “30 Rock” debut and exist as NBC’s only good new series developed during our time at IU until 2009’s “Parks and Recreation.”

February 22, 2007: “The O.C.” airs its final episode after a four-year meteoric rise and fall. Your high school self just cried a little on the inside.

May 6, 2007: ABC and “LOST” showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof announce the series will end in 2010, allowing it to go out on its own terms. The results of this decision have yet to be seen, but no series kept fans online and away from the red Solo cup like this one.

June 10, 2007: “The Sopranos,” one of television’s most-celebrated series ever, fades to black, enraging viewers and cable providers who received countless calls for faulty signals after the fact.

July 19, 2007: “Mad Men” debuts on AMC, triggering a shift of cable power to the then-unknown network that allows them to follow “Men” with the also freaking amazing “Breaking Bad” in January of 2008.

November 5, 2007: The Writers Guild of America strike begins and lasts for 100 days, halting production, disrupting episode orders and de-railing development for subsequent years. Was anything really accomplished? Nope.

March 9, 2008: “The Wire” departs after five seasons with overwhelming hoopla. Oh, wait.

March 12, 2008: Video streaming website Hulu goes live, offering new episodes of series from NewsCorp and NBC Universal partners. Though not mainstream-successful for another year or so, Hulu is surely bookmarked by most of us at this point. 

November 4, 2008: Barack Obama is elected president, which unfortunately overshadows CNN’s groundbreaking use of holographic technology that beamed Will.i.am to Wolf Blitzer.

June 1, 2009: Conan O’Brien begins his sure-to-be-successful stint as the host of “The Tonight Show.”  Glad that’s still going well.

June 25, 2009: Michael Jackson passes away, allowing Wolf Blitzer to shed the last bit of his dignity during live coverage and creating the biggest tabloid-“real” news crossover story since O.J.

December 3, 2009: “Jersey Shore” premieres, revolutionizing both television as a storytelling medium and depictions of Italian-Americans on cable TV.

December 26, 2009: The “Power Rangers” saga comes to an end after 17 breathtaking seasons. Or, this is just the time they finally ran out of repurposed footage from Japan.

January 22, 2010: Conan’s last day at “The Tonight Show” comes to pass. That went well.

February 7, 2010: 106.5 million people help make Super Bowl XLIV the most-watched telecast in the history of the medium.

February 8, 2010: After more than 28 years, MTV drops the “Music Television” moniker from its logo — about six years too late.

Congrats, grads, and don’t forget about your television, because economic conditions suggest you’ll be spending lots of time with it in the coming years.