Some channels quietly switched off their analog signals last month. Maybe one day we will be all digital – but it looks like we will have to wait a little bit longer before the big flip of the switch. A big analog-killer switch. Probably hidden in a cornfield somewhere in Nebraska, along with the nuclear weapons Skynet will one day turn against us as we plunge headlong into the digital age.
So you have to wonder, what will happen with the aliens who are off in a distant galaxy, watching Howdy Doody, My Mother the Car, and the JFK assassination via the TV waves that have washed through space. How will they react when their entertainment fix is cut off? Are we dooming the Earth to an invasion because our future alien overlords will never get to see the final outcome for Lost (and thus proving the genius of Futurama)? Or perhaps the aliens will arrive to fight the terminators and humanity will squeeze through the cracks of this cataclysmic battle, just as we puny mammals hid under rocks as the dinosaurs faced oblivion many, many, many years ago.