MOULTRIE, Ga. — I’ve noted on more than one occasion that I have 600 television channels but seemingly very little programming worth watching. So I came up with a plan to “unbore” myself .

I try to find technical errors in productions and to anticipate what is going to happen next. I make it my challenge.

For instance, I was watching one of those “survivor” shows set in the Louisiana bayous. As the show comes on, the narrator notes that the swamp is very deadly with a dozen different types of poisonous snakes.

Not so. You see there are only four poisonous snakes indigenous to the United States. They are the copperhead, the cottonmouth (water moccasin), the coral snake, and the rattlesnake. Of course the rattlesnake comes in several flavors, but it’s still a rattlesnake.

 Also, I keep count of how many times they show stock footage of the same gators, snakes and panthers. I’ve seen the same footage on different shows. And they present these shots like the “survivors” are about to be attacked.

Then there’s a scene where the naked survivors are shivering and are arguing about who had the best access to the fire.

I pointed out to my wife that the answer to their problem is quite simple — build two or more fires and sleep in the middle. Duh!

 And they always build their shelters like they are third graders. They just put a framework (often flat) and lay palm fronds on it willy nilly. Hey people, the fronds have to be  layered like shingles on a house. And the steeper you build your frame, the better the shelter sheds water. But these people are city folk. I shouldn’t expect better.

These shows must have contrast and friction to feed the small minds.

This one survivor show started off with the naked man and woman getting along very well. I told my wife that attitude will change after the next commercial. Getting along doesn’t sell. There must be conflict.

Sure enough, right after that little green lizard tried to sell me some insurance, they came back on and the man is pouting. He’s a big bad ex-marine and will not have a naked woman telling him what to do. But just before the episode ends, and just as I predicted, the man apologizes and they start working as a team. Besides, who wants to eat earthworms sitting naked all by himself?

In yet another wilderness show called “Mountain Men,” a hard-scrabbler named Eustis gets a friend to help him set a vertical pole. I think he was building a pole barn. Or maybe they were just going to play Ninja-class horseshoes.

As soon as they mentioned how heavy the pole was, I told my wife that they were going to drop it, and one of them would get hurt. Yep! Nailed it! Ray Charles could have seen that one coming.

Of course my entertainment in this vein is not limited to reality shows. I also watch alleged dramas and predict the next moves. So there’s a woman who walks into a room and finds a body. It’s been stabbed. Blood is everywhere. There is a knife on the floor beside the body.

So I tell her, “Okay sweetie, go on over and pick up the knife and get your prints on it. Then track through the blood and get some on your hands and dress. Now stand there a few minutes and someone will walk in shortly and catch you incriminating yourself.”  Yep, she did it.

Lame programming can be made fun.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-454