By Kerby Anderson Some of the promos for the latest TV shows are appalling, but I have discovered that the actual programs are even worse than what is shown in the one-minute commercials. I would never watch the programs, and fortunately did not have to watch them. A recent article by Maureen Callahan in the New York Post gives all of the shocking details about some of the shows on television. On the ABC program Scandal, Olivia Pope is a fictional character portrayed by Kerry Washington. In one episode she beats a wheelchair-bound stroke victim to death by bashing his face in with an aluminum chair. Apparently the program is known for its OMG twists. But even some of the jaded TV commentators could not believe what they saw on this episode. The Netflix program House of Cards also has some shocking scenes. First Lady Claire Underwood (played by Robin Wright) kills her mother, via lethal injection during an election cycle in order to get more voter sympathy. The scene is played straight and without any moral reflection. On the highly acclaimed USA program, Mr. Robot, one character strangles another character to death during a rooftop tryst for no discernible reason. When the police arrive, his pregnant wife stabs herself in the uterus, with a fondue fork, to induce labor. The worst of all is Game of Thrones. One commentator summarized the program by saying that much of the screen time included “torturing people, feeding women to dogs, and sexually assaulting” women. Apparently there were two scenes that finally generated outrage and criticism: a horrible rape scene and a father burning his child alive at the stake. Historians who wonder how Rome could fall into such debauchery in the Coliseum need only turn on television today to see how far we have fallen. It is time for those of us who would never watch these shows to write the producers and say enough.