VOILA, THE FRENCH ARE RIGHT AGAIN!

"The more things change, the more they remain the same...." An old French proverb whose words have echoed down the generations. To some, a piece of enlightened wisdom. To others of a more scientific bent, proverbs like this are often no more than untested crutches to get you through the day. Personally -- I vote for wisdom.

You may have to work your way through many a day before the words here make complete sense. Wait... let me correct that! Really all you have to do is surf your handy hundred-channel television set. The more you see out there, the more you realize that old French writer was absolutely right.

If testing is your thing, OK test it for yourself. Among others, there are five primal human emotions: Passion, Fear. Terror, Compulsion, Curiosity. Surf with me >>

* Passion ~See if you can find any programming out there without sex. Marital sex, pre-marital sex, lyrical sex, kinky sex, but somewhere somehow even in the goriest, all-guy war story, there has to be time for as the French put it: la grande passione

* Fear ~ Every age has been afraid of many things. Predators, enemies, floods, earthquakes. Notice how little has changed. Some of the names have changed, but not the fear. Which is why it's hard to find a program that doesn't feature fear. Just listen to the music and you can tell when it's coming. Heck, even game shows cue the music when the audience is tensely waiting to see which box or number or letter will be selected

* Terror ~ Terror is doubling down on fear. It's the sum of all fears as in the ever-popular monster plots. I mean, America just never gets enough ghosts, vampires, zombies, werewolves, Kongs, and Chuckys. Terror began the day Eden's gates were slammed behind us, and it's still here. Making some of us scared, others rich

* Compulsion ~ Seems as if evolution has hard-wired us to compulsively behave violently. All in the name of survival, we are advised. Still, most violence throughout most centuries and now throughout most programming is intentional and, one could argue, indulgent. Somehow bashing in faces, pummeling bodies, gunning down rivals, and firebombing cars and cities is just so damn satisfying. The means change, the violence remains the same

* Curiosity ~ From the first time we find our baby toes to stick into our mouth, we remain a curious creature. We are curious now about more than our toes, and curious we will remain to the end. But now during your surfing how many times and plots have you noticed revolve around science. Scientists are after all the most curious of all creatures. Naturally, the madder the scientist, the better the story.

Test over! Grades in! The French are right once again! "The more things change, the more they remain the same.."