{"id":41679,"date":"2021-06-11T22:56:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T22:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/?p=41679"},"modified":"2021-06-11T22:56:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T22:56:45","slug":"retrospect-high-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/retrospect-high-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Retrospect: High Performance<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor reflects…<\/h2>\n\n

There I was, alone in the living room on a Wednesday night in March, 1983. Wandering among the channels, I encountered a show called High Performance.<\/em> I’d not heard of it, but could tell immediately it was an action show, one hour duration, which was a common genre back then: A-Team<\/em> and Knight Rider<\/em> were examples.<\/p>\n

Lying on the couch just passing time, I decided to stay with High Performance.<\/em> It didn’t seem very compelling, I quickly decided, but then again, there didn’t seem a reason to jump from it, either. We only got about 9 channels back then, a few of which never had anything interesting. High Performance,<\/em> I thought, might hold a surprise or two, considering its name.<\/p>\n

I seem to recall the show’s outro and intro, when it would leave, then return from a commercial, showed a digital clock running through tenths of seconds. It was a decent hook, because back then digital clocks were still relatively new. When you saw one – especially running through tenths or hundredths of seconds – it suggested a new, futuristic setting.<\/p>\n

From what I could tell, the premise of “High Performance” was that the team – which I think had four people – were competent, well prepared, and capable of executing independent tasks which, together, would undo their adversaries. They were all young, and none was very memorable – at least, not to me. In that way, “High Performance” may’ve been too far ahead of its time.<\/p>\n

Back in the 70s and 80s, it was big personalities that people liked, so made a show popular. Not only on TV, but in everyday life, people liked uniqueness and spirit.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, much more than back then, people seem to like other people to be predictable and forgettable – generic is perhaps the term for it. They prefer no flavour, rather than a strong flavour. Not everyone shares this preference, but most seem to.<\/p>\n

Over the years, that episode of High Performance<\/em> has continued to echo in my brain, and perhaps that’s why: it was a generic hour-long action show. Compared to shows that celebrated individuals, like Magnum, PI<\/em>, A-Team<\/em>, Knight Rider<\/em>, and Fall Guy<\/em>, High Performance<\/em> seemed unable to compete – back then.<\/p>\n

I never saw another episode of High Performance<\/em>. My research suggests only four episodes were made, all shown during March 1983. Curiously, the next day at school, a classmate of mine mentioned she’d watched High Performance<\/em> the night before, as well.\n<\/p>\n

Source:<\/p>\n

imdb.com<\/a><\/p>\nJack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor reflects… There I was, alone in the living room on a Wednesday night in March, 1983. Wandering among the channels, I encountered a show called High Performance. I’d not heard …<\/p>\n

Retrospect: High Performance<\/em><\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retrospect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41679"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41695,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41679\/revisions\/41695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}