This could have gone in my sports section because I’ve only seen this commercial during sports events, but there’s a DirectTV commercial out right now that I kind of find disturbing. There’s a male sitting on a couch watching a football game, and his son sits on the couch next to him and asks “Can you read me a story, Dad – oh, the game’s on” looking disheveled. The Dad then says “Oh that’s okay. I can freeze time.” He then shows him how he can pause live TV apparently using his mind (he’s really just pressing pause on the remote. I wasn’t fooled). Now the thing is, he doesn’t say “Oh that’s okay son, you’re more important than a football game,” or “why would I let sports interfere with my love for you?” or “get me another beer son.” Now I’m no parent but I’ve heard there’s a lot of sacrifice involved in parenting, and basically DirectTV is saying you will no longer have to sacrifice sports for your stupid kids. Now I’m exaggerating, but does anyone else find that commercial slightly disturbing?

I think the most disturbing part is when the camera zooms out of the house and all the way into space for the last image of a DirectTV satellite, with the caption “Somebody up there loves you.” That just completes the picture.