Allow me first to set the scene…Greta was asleep, Christine and I were sitting on the couch a good two-and-a-half hours into NBC’s coverage of the Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympic Games. We were tired, bleary-eyed from laughing, crying, and realizing that tomorrow morning we would have to emerge from our Olympic cocoon and face real life.
And then, just as Michael Buble (wow, is everyone Canadian?) and hundreds of hot, dancing Mountie chicks were wrapping up a rousing version of “O, Canada”, Bob Costas informed us that the network was now cutting away from their coverage — yes, you heard me, cutting away from their fake-live coverage! — to air a sneak preview episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s cheesy-ass new reality show, “The Marriage Ref”. What the hell? Say it ain’t so, Bob!
But, sadly, it was so…and like millions of American television viewers, we did not set our Tivo for NBC’s impromtu hour-long intermission, so, we missed the entire last hour of the Closing Ceremonies. Thanks, NBC!
What really pisses me off is that I checked the Tivo on Saturday night and there was no mention of a one-hour break in the Closing Ceremonies coverage at all. Which means that NBC, in their never-ending quest for total ineptitude decided to make the old switcheroo at the last minute and force feed their loyal Olympic viewers a meal of straight-up dog shit. Sorry, but that’s how it felt. After sixteen days of watching nothing but the networks of NBC, having them pull a stunt like that was like a freaking slap in the face…
And the worst thing was that our Tivo cut-off midway through “The Marriage Ref”…actually, that’s probably a good thing because that show looks super lame. But I’m sorry, NBC, you just don’t cut off something like the Closing Ceremonies at the Olympics to air a reality show. It’s disrespectful to your viewers, to Canada and hell, to the freaking Olympics in general. Seriously, I wanna write a letter to the IOC and get the games switched to another network next time…yikes…
On their website last night, the AP called NBC’s decision to cut off the Closing Ceremonies “spectacularly wrong-headed” and continued on to say that: “those enjoying the festivities were told to come back in an hour — at 11:30 p.m. on a night before work or school — for the conclusion. Incredible that NBC would wrap a show it has high hopes for, and one of its biggest stars, in ill will.”
We could not agree more. Suck it, NBC…
make. see. eat. do. 
I’m glad you said something about this, because at 4am, I just KNEW something was off when I watched my TiVo’d Closing Ceremonies and they cut over to that new lame-o show, but was not quite sure what had happened. Too exhausted from so much fun Olympic watching to figure it out. 🙂
What a terrible thing for NBC to do! First the whole Conan/Jay thing, now this…booooooooooooo!!! 😦
I know how you feel…luckily I was awake late last night and managed to catch the rerun of the Closing Ceremonies. They played the whole thing this time, so we got to see everything.
The musical acts were OK — Avril Lavigne and Alanis sounded the best of the bunch! — but the really cool thing was the little short video intro they did for the London games in 2012. And then the final full credits were kinda cool too…some great highlight clips of the entire games.
Hopefully you can find it online… 😦