Category: Television Page 18 of 19

TV vs Film

On July 10, 2006

Mark posted briefly a few days ago about finding TV more compelling than movies lately. I don’t know whether I agree or not, but it something I’ve thought about (especially as a film buff who only a few years overcame a prejudiced and condescending view of television), and his post made the wheels of my mind start turning on the subject again.

I tried to come up with a cohesive essay-type thing with a thesis and everything, but it didn’t work…it’s too large a topic with too many variables and exceptions to deal with so quickly and with so little thought. So here’s just some observations. Make of them what you will.

Television really has improved over the last five or ten years. Its reputation as the “bastard stepchild” of cinema is quickly falling by the wayside as actors and writers and directors and producers move more fluidly from tv to movies and back, bringing both quality and respectability.
The fact that the average TV drama runs 18 hours per season (22 one-hour eps minus commercials) and may run for 3-7 seasons or longer means that a good showrunner can delve into much more complex plots and develop many more fully fleshed-out characters than is possible in the average two-hour film, yielding a more fulfilling and longer-lasting experience for the viewer. On the downside, if the showrunner doesn’t have enough plot ideas or character development to fill the time, you end up with the “let’s try this, nope, let’s try this instead” style of writing that plagued the last couple of seasons of The O.C..
As well as being longer than film, TV is also shorter than film. Each episode of a TV drama is roughly 45 minutes long without commercials, a much more easily consumable chunk than a 2-hour film. This isn’t really a point for or against television’s quality, but just an observation that smaller chunks are appealing. (Even books with lots of short chapters are a lot easier to read than ones with a few long chapters, even if the total page count is the same.)
Because a television show carries the same characters, world, and overall story (or at least setting) from week to week, it begets familiarity. Sometimes different is good, but a lot of times familiar is good. When I get home from work, tired and glad to be home, I tend to opt for the next episode of a TV show I already know rather than a movie that’s unfamiliar. TV has the capability of being new and familiar at the same time. And because it’s meant to be that way, it doesn’t suffer from sequel-itis like movies tend to do. (Although it can, if the TV execs somehow manage to keep it on the air for a couple of seasons too long rather than cancel it a couple of seasons too early. Can I trade two seasons of The X-Files and a few of Friends for a little more Wonderfalls and Firefly and Arrested Development?)
TV is more available and availably eclectic than film. There are five major networks, each of which has ten to fifteen shows a week. That’s at least fifty possible shows a week available. Any given week, you won’t find more than twenty films or so in release, at least not in St. Louis, and that’s including independents. These shows are split between relationship-based dramas, science fiction, procedurals, sitcoms, reality shows, competitions, sports. And that’s not even including cable channels, which adds in every sort of show imaginable.
Related to the previous point–film has a dichotomy of production/distribution models. Mainstream Hollywood is often a very different thing from independent and world cinema. Television does not have this dichotomy. I suppose you could make a case that the big five equate to mainstream and cable equates to indie, but that doesn’t work entirely, simply because network TV itself contains more variety than mainstream film offers. What multiplex would show Veronica Mars? or Arrested Development? These are cult shows that have a very devoted following, but simply aren’t mainstream (not that TV is a safe haven for them either, judging by the cancellation of AD despite an Emmy win). The point is, if these shows were movies, we’d be watching them at indie theatres, not multiplexes.
I’ve put forth a lot of thoughts about TV over film. But really, these are just the areas in which TV does have advantages over film by nature of its medium. In other areas, film has it all over TV. The ability to sustain moods–TV can’t sustain a mood for longer than fifteen minutes because of the commercials. Immersion–for the same reason. I don’t know how to term this, but storytelling that covers only a short period in someone’s life…a turning point, or an epiphany. Garden State was an amazing and beautiful film, but it would’ve been a horrible TV show, because it’s about one weekend that changes a man’s life. You can’t make that happen every week on a TV show.

The crux of the matter is this: Is TV really more compelling than film right now? If by “TV” you mean Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars and Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Farscape and Babylon 5 and Arrested Development and Grey’s Anatomy, and if by “film” you mean whatever wanna-be blockbuster is playing at the multiplex, then YES. But that’s the cream of TV’s crop versus the mediocrity of mainstream Hollywood. Good TV may be easier to find than good film, just because it’s there on your TV set right next to all the Everybody Loves Raymonds and the Yes, Dears and the King of Queenses and the third season of The OC. But good film is out there. Here’s a few great films I’ve watched this calendar year: Match Point, Good Night and Good Luck, Cache, Pickpocket (a bit of a cheat, since it’s from 1959, but I did see it in a theatre, so there), Primer, Wallace and Gromit, Walk the Line, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, Inside Man, Thank You for Smoking, The Constant Gardener, Brick, Downfall, Thumbsucker. Only three of those played at the multiplexes. I think three of them didn’t even play in St. Louis at all. I realize I sound elitist. But I think the dichotomy of film distribution is making people think that good film is more scarce than it is.

Randomosity

By Jandy

On July 3, 2006

In Personal, Television

Warning: This post is going to be random. I feel like writing, because I haven’t for a while, but I really don’t have anything substantial to say. End of disclaimer.

Back from Florida. And I didn’t get a sunburn this year! Maybe the first time ever. My coworker has been teasing me for weeks about using sunscreen, so there was no way I was going to come home burned. Granted, I’m not hugely tanned, either, but then I don’t tan well. I got a little, so I’m happy.

Back to work. Well, since I’m leaving in a month (!), my main responsibility right now is training someone else to do my job. Since I’ve been working with her for like three weeks now, and my job isn’t hard, she’s largely got it and is doing it. So, I’m filling time catching up some requests from other banks, stuff like that. It’s just sort of weird, not doing the the work that I’ve been doing since I started.

And tomorrow, off. But what the heck is going on with Fair St. Louis this year? No airshow? NO FREAKIN’ AIRSHOW? The hell? We go to the fair EVERY YEAR to get a funnel cake, see the air shows, and watch the fireworks. And I was especially looking forward to it because I won’t be here for the St. Louis County Fair and Air Show this September. Grumble. I’m boycotting Fair St. Louis.

So, with my long-proclaimed disdain for reality shows, guess what my summer TV lineup looks like? So You Think You Can Dance, Treasure Hunters, America’s Got Talent, and reruns of Who’s Line Is It Anyway? and What Not to Wear (the BBC versions, natch). Heh. But I can’t help it if TV stations don’t run real shows in the summer, can I? I suppose I could concentrate on catching up on Gilmore Girls so I can watch the new season this fall…I’m only five seasons behind. I even DVR’d Tuesday Night Book Club, but I watched the first ten minutes and deleted it. It was crap. SYTYCD, though, is not quite up to American Idol-level interest, but it’s getting close. I don’t know that much about dancing, and I have trouble enjoying contemporary dance because it just looks dumb to me, but the ballroom stuff and the hip-hop stuff is great fun to watch.

I’ve noticed something about me and hip-hop (/rap/r&b). I don’t like listening to it. Can hardly stand it sometimes. But I really like some of the hip-hop-style dancing. And I also often find that I like rap songs when they’re used in movies and commercials and stuff like that. Here’s my new theory. Rap is harsh and feels like it’s born from pain…like krump, it’s a lashing out in frustration, in anger. It feels heavy and intense. So when it’s put in a context like that, like the use of “Jesus Walks” in Jarhead, or “Lose Yourself” in 8 Mile, it fits. It raises the intensity. And later, when I hear the same song out of context, I’m reminded of that intensity, that unleashing of harsh feeling, and it’s meaningful in some way. But when I hear a rap song on the radio first, with no context, it feels overwrought and just seems noisy. I don’t know if that makes sense at all, but I’ve been thinking about why I do like rap songs that I first heard in a movie so much more than ones that I first heard on the radio.

Aw, no more grad students on Treasure Hunters. So, since they dropped out, does that mean there’s no elimination this round? Oh, no, the Browns are back. Okay. Hee…the Hanlons are worried. That’s because you suck only slightly less than the Browns! Heh. But I’m sad for the grad students. She tried so hard to keep going, and the other two worked so hard to carry her. Yay, more Ask.com product placement. Normally I’m not against product placement at all, but this show is a bit overboard. You know all the contestants are thinking, damn, I wish they’d let me use Google. And can I just say how disappointed I am in the Fogels? Come on, preacher man, quit being a jerk. Honestly. Okay, I’m done now. Nobody but me is watching this anyway.

Commerical Fun

By Jandy

On June 14, 2006

In Television

Sometimes I love commercials. This one had me falling off the couch.

The best part is when the voice over guy comes on and lists “crime deterrent” among the phone’s features with a totally straight expression.

And this one’s not funny, but it’s one of my favorite recent commercials. Okay, it’s mostly because I like that I’ve seen almost all of the films Kate Winslet is describing. And I like her accent. I=shallow.

If companies would make good, entertaining commercials all the time–commercials that people want to upload to YouTube and add to their favorites list and rewatch multiple times–they wouldn’t have so much of a problem with people fast-forwarding through the commercials on their DVRs. Advertisers, RIAA and MPAA: Quit putting so much effort into stopping people from using your content illegally (or not at all, in the case of ads) and redirect some of your efforts into making quality content.

Obsession

By Jandy

On May 27, 2006

In Personal, Television

Hi, I’m Jandy, and I have an obsessive personality. Or something like it. I get incredibly obsessed incredibly easily, and when I get obsessed with something, I go all the way. When I was little, it was horses. I had an imaginary stable. But this wasn’t just “oh, sometimes I imagine I have horses.” No, I had a registry. Like, a physical notebook that listed all my horses’ names, their breed and breeding, their height, their color, their discipline, their temperament…and this was an ongoing thing for years, where the horses got older, and I bred them together, and got new horses that got added to the registry, etc. I still have that book somewhere.

Later, it was figure skating. This was after the 1994 Olympics. I watched it faithfully, learned the names of all the skaters, all the commentators, all the jumps and how to do them (although I can’t skate, so I just had to pretend to do them in my living room), kept a spreadsheet keeping track of which skaters were from where and what they’d won, taped and watched every competition for the next two or three years.

On to TV shows, which remain an obsession–to varying degrees depending on the TV show. I can name you pretty much every episode of Buffy right now. Veronica Mars, same thing. I go through phases where all I want to do is watch a specific TV show, whether it be 24 or Lost or Gilmore Girls or Desperate Housewives or whatever. These obsessions tend to be short-lived and don’t extend outside of the show itself (i.e., I don’t really get a great desire to learn everything about the actors’ lives).

Movies are an ongoing one, so I’m not even mentioning it. My love of movies is always bubbling under the surface, but it rarely exhibits itself as an out-and-out obsession.

My current obsession, as you may have guessed based on my last couple of posts, is American Idol, and believe me saying that is incredibly embarrassing. I have spent four years mocking this show specifically and reality TV in general (I still reserve my right to mock other reality shows), and claiming that even this year when I decided to try it out as a concert show, I wouldn’t get into the whole competition/voting aspect. Yeah, that lasted all of four or five shows into the competition segment. By that time, I’d caught McPheever and I couldn’t turn back.

I spent two or three hours this morning scouring the net for clips of interviews, news of what the Idols are doing next, and trying to talk myself out of wanting to go to the American Idol concert this summer. I dislike the elimination aspect a LOT, and I loved the finale with all the Idols back and performing together and just having fun. Now I really really want to go to the concert. Really really badly. Someone talk me out of this! Or, alternately, agree to go with me.

Yeah, that would work. So how about it? August 13th at Savvis? I’d have to come back from Texas for that, but I’d probably do it. That’s how obsession works. Or else September in Austin. For that I’d have to drag my livejournal friend from Houston, though, and a) Houston’s a long way from Austin (although she loves Austin and might do it, and b) I’m not sure she’d want to go. But tickets are on sale now, and I’m sure they’re going fast, so if I don’t decide soon, my decision might get made for me against my will.

In related news, Steven Spielberg wants to meet with Kat! Woohoo! In other, less fun news, her album probably won’t be recorded and released for like six months.

CW? It’s a done deal.

By Jandy

On May 17, 2006

In Television

Veronica Mars renewed for a third season. (The announcement is below the Grey’s Anatomy interview.)

WOOOOOOOOOTTTT!!!!!

I was fairly confident it would be, but it’s nice to have confirmation. Sorry to any Everwood fans out there…I didn’t watch it, but I know a lot of people really loved it. Okay, now back to VM. If I weren’t at work, I’d be jumping up and down right now.

So. UPN is rerunning Season 2 over the summer, starting ~~TONIGHT at 9/8 central~~ (my bad, I was reading posts from yesterday and didn’t connect the timing). I personally don’t like starting shows in the middle, but it can be done, especially if you’re not obsessive like me. ;) Go ahead and give it a try tonight, if you want. The S1 DVDs are available, as well, if you’d rather start at the beginning. I hear Target has them on sale for $22.99 (which is about 60% off normal price, and about 40% of amazon.com’s current price), but I haven’t been able to locate a set yet. I believe the library system has them as well. And if you’re in St. Louis, I have a set of DVDs burned off TV that I can lend you (of season 1, not season 2). And S2 comes out on DVD in August, which is still a month or so before S3 will start. So there are options both for obsessives and start-in-the-middlers.

If you choose to watch the S2 reruns over the summer and want to get an overview of S1, my friend Cindy has written up a brief synopsis of the season here. Be aware, she does completely spoil the mystery in S1, but she leaves a lot of spoiler space before she does, in case you decide while reading the synopsis that you really don’t want to know. (Of course, if you watch Season 2, you’ll find out anyway.)

Note that I was mistaken about the timing of the rerun…it’s not tonight (Wednesday), it was last night. So you can start watching next week with episode two, but do note that 2×02 was one of the worst episodes of the entire series, so if you do start with that one, DO NOT JUDGE the show by it! Please! (On the other hand, if you watch it and like it, just think how awesome the rest of the show is!)

Now, if I can just keep Katharine McPhee on American Idol after tonight, this will be a completely and unbeatably great day. Yes indeed.