The bad TV shows we all watched: how TV ruled before the internet

The bad TV shows we all watched: how TV ruled before the internet

Médico de familia, Aída, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, Lost… the list of shows that drew millions of Spaniards to their TV sets but that, watched today, provoke more laughter than the best comedy. In a country where there was no streaming or downloads until well into the 2000s, what was on was what you got. And boy, did people swallow it.

The era of the captive viewer

Before Netflix, HBO and the like turned choosing what to watch into an endless menu, television was a de facto monopoly. Networks aired whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and changed schedules without notice. As many remember, seasons were often broadcast erratically, leaving shows without an ending —as with ALF, whose finale only became known years later via YouTube— or repeating episodes ad nauseam.

In that context, shows like «Médico de familia» (1995-1999) drew audiences of more than 8 million viewers, even though, according to multiple retrospective analyses, its plot was a compendium of clichés and its message, for some, bordered on family indoctrination. Some called it «pure indoctrination», arguing it instilled the minority=victim identification. The show, however, had Lola Baldrich, and for many that was enough.

The so-bad-but-so-addictive phenomenon

Not all bad shows were bad in the same way. Some, like «Aída», hold up thanks to characters like Mauricio and Luisma, though others consider them trash. Others, like «Heidi» or «Maya the Bee», were soporific snoozefests an entire generation endured. And there were those who said «The X-Files» was pure paranormal mumbo-jumbo, or that «Lost» turned into a mess from the third season on.

The debate makes clear that quality standards are subjective, but there is a consensus: many of these shows were objectively weak, with flimsy scripts, shoddy production and dreadful acting. The case of «Águila Roja» is paradigmatic: its action scenes, people say, caused secondhand embarrassment, and yet it stayed on air for years.

The shadow of indoctrination and the Overton window

Beyond quality, some participants point to a side effect: television back then shaped mindsets. The «Overton window» is mentioned to explain how shows like «Friends» normalized thirty-somethings living like teenagers, or how «Sens and the City» instilled in women impossible expectations that led them to a lonely life with cats. «Médico de familia», for its part, would have reinforced the idea of minority=victim. These criticisms, already voiced back then, gain new force in the streaming era, where content is consumed with a filter.

The legacy of an era without choice

Today, with hundreds of shows one click away, it is easy to judge what we watched. But those who grew up in the 80s and 90s know that TV was the only entertainment at home. As it was said, «the cool stuff was sci-fi and cartoons», and the rest, pure junk. Nostalgia cannot hide the fact that much of that programming was garbage, but it was our garbage. And until the internet arrived, TV ruled.

That said, the analysis suggests many of those shows paved the way for better ones: without «Twin Peaks» there would have been no «Lost». Without «The X-Files», the «Fringe» universe would never have existed. The TV of that era, good or bad, was the testing ground for today's fiction. And that, at least, deserves an ironic nod of respect.

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