You know those people who endlessly watch, eat and breathe movies? Well that's me with TV. Love it. I enjoy nothing more than picking up a full season on DVD and tearing through the sucker in a day. You may find this hard to believe given my rippling physique and inability to see objects four feet away, but I spend a lot of time on the couch watching a shiny screen.
If I woke up tomorrow and my legs had been replaced with a beanbag-like structure containing drink and chip holders, I'd see that as evolution.
The weird thing is, I watch a lot of television shows, but I never watch television broadcasts. With the exception of the ocassional jaunt onto the trashy Reality TV highway, there's really nothing being broadcast here that I want to watch.
That's a pretty damning call from a guy who believes TV has overtaken cinema as the premiere medium for visual storytelling.
Australian TV sucks. Television stations treat their audience like idiots by dripfeeding them US shows that are months out of date. When they screen something within a month of the US broadcast they champion it as a marvel of customer service. They refuse to invest in local programming. They hamstring any technology that may improve the medium. Digital TV languishes in mediocrity as they block multichanelling. TiVO is coming to Australia next year, but will be supported by next to no channels and thus will be a shadow of its US counterpart.
Because of all this, much of the television I watch is in blocks. Watching shows in one 45 minute block a week is virtually a thing of the past. I'm watching movies. Twelve hour movies. There's a lot of scope there. It's a robust storytelling medium. Having been exposed to that for so long, it shows the cracks in traditional films. The shorthand they're forced to use. There's little time to grow with the characters.
That doesn't invalidate film as a medium by any means. It's just my preference. Print journalists adhere to different guidelines as those operating on radio. Both have obvious value.
I'm in it for the long haul though. It's TV all the way.
This was supposed to be a paragraph-long intro so I could outline some of the shows I'm enjoying at the moment, but my love of the medium shines through, as does my inability to keep things concise.
I'm sure I'll get into some actual programs later, if I can turn off the TV.
Stefan tells stories, writes about stories and tells stories about stories.
4 comments:
I am also really annoyed by the water marks used by the free-to-air networks.
It was the beginning of what I soon realised was a souring relationship between myself and TV.
And so much of it is absolute crap, but when there's good stuff on, the networks do indeed treat its viewers poorly, with poor timing, constant ad interruptions, and I really -- I mean really -- loath cross-TV promotions. But that's what TV is all about -- giving you stuff you love to hate!
HBO shows like Deadwood and Rome are better than films, sadly the budget is smaller so usually they dont last as long as some one camera sitcoms which drag out for ten years. (My opinion, all good written shows have from 5-7 years of good in them. After that it becomes trash. Look at the X-Files. Both Buffy and Star Trek went for that long..)
That said, I think Aussie broadcasters are starting to realise their long delays hurt them with TV downloads being so easy these days. Sadly with the WGA Strike the only good place to get TV at the moment has been the UK. Shows like Torchwood, Ashes To Ashes and Primeval are my favourites at the moment. For US shows, I'd suggest Pushing Daisies. Think of Dead Like Me mixed with the styles of Tim Burton (he's not involved, just feels like him).
Pushing Daisies is great.
Rome held my interest for a while but faded, and I never found interest in Deadwood.
Aussie TV stations are starting to figure out that TV downloads are hurting them. Sadly, their reactive, wait-until-the-last-minute actions leave their apathy for their audience transparent.
They could have been innovators. Now they're another industry cowering under the internet explosion they ignored until it was too late.
Good example - Underbelly. Because of the legal troubles with some cases or something, the show is not being aired in Victoria tonight. In this day and age, this is not certainly an issue.
I'm ashamed to say even if the show is on tv and its current, i'll usually download and watch it from the net, so I can watch it when I want to, and free of normal ads.
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