Sunset Television Will Rock Your Goddamn Face Off

Television. A turgid wasteland of unoriginal, rehashed, half-baked, lowest common denominator pandering bullshit, devoid of none but the merest spark of passion, originality or (for people such as myself) entertainment value and thought provocation, designed primarily to make money with very little concern given to really improving its viewers' capacity for a compelling experience.
Let's not even get into its reputation as the opiate of the masses at this juncture.

Basically, I loathe and despise zeitgeist TV with a flaming passion, with its empty shows, dumbed down blaring advertisements, and the general sense it gives me (outside of certain documentary shows and BBC World) of mind rotting banality.
The majority of television I feel tries to coerce me into a mode of thinking that is just jolly unhealthy, while it at the same time lies to me and promises me things it can never hope to deliver on.

Sunset Television on the other hand, is the complete antithesis of that. Its not promising you anything.

Not since the heady days of Wonder Showzen have I come across anything presented in this format that's just so downright bent. Comparing Sunset Television to Wonder Showzen is however, a very broad comparison to make, as Sunset TV is definitely its own unique beast.

Whereas Wonder Showzen usually contained some sort of message within its various vignettes, Sunset Television eschews the distractions of having any particular referable point to make in favour of giddying levels of weirdness. Like so.


There are three episodes of Sunset TV (I've dispensed with the italics now as I am a lazy ass)
currently available for viewing at the link provided at the bottom of this post. Each episodes runs for an average of just under five minutes, and dispenses almost entirely with any conventional narrative structure, plot outlines, or anything remotely resembling any form of cohesive linear progression.

Its far more content to stun you with rapid-fire segment changes, scenes from other TV shows taken out of context and mashed together, fake adverts for outré products, multiple video tracks superimposed upon one another, strange demonic alterations in film speed and audio pitch, and a whole lot of flat out randomness. And in doing so it gleefully pokes a big sharp stick in the eye of everything I bemoaned about mainstream TV in the introduction to this post. Then sets it on fire. Then consumes mainstream TV's burnt and bloated corpse, shits it out and sets the shit on fire.
Ergo, the perfect subject for the first proper Radomitronica post.

But describing this show in blocks of text is like trying to describe a rainbow to a man who's been blind from birth. So click for another video example

I'd like to imagine that in a world that is slightly more in tune with my particular set of sensibilities, that this is the kind of thing I might wake up to in the middle of the night after dozing off in front of the TV. I dunno what it is about it exactly, but it just really appeals to my sense of humour.

But enough of my written opinions of this show. The content of Sunset TV is such a visceral experience that to try and analyze it in any great depth would be to miss the point of it all really.
Sunset TV simply is. And that in itself should be enough.
Its set up and edited in such a way as to give the viewer the impression that he/she is flicking through many different TV channels in rapid succession, and needs to be experienced within the context of its episodes to fully appreciate it.

So, I urge you to follow this link here to sunsettelevision.com and check it out for yourselves. I don't recommend doing so in a work environment though, lest Sunset's sheer awesome cause any dullard coworkers you might have around to spontaneously combust with the blinding force of its Dada-esque powers.

I really hope they make some more episodes soon.

xo
Chloé