...And I'm not going to watch this anymore!
Ladies and gentlemen (of, um, the blog), haven't you said these (or some variation of these) words several times in the past. I'm talking of course about that age old, most American of medias, television (specifically TV dramas), and even more importantly, I'm talking about how terrible it is right now. But unfortunately, unlike the economy, wars, and global warming, this seems to be an affliction only suffered by America. This is a travesty! America invented television, and yet television gives us nothing but a terrifying amalgamation of the worst shows in the world, and canceling those very few that are actually good.
Now, I do believe that there isn’t a man, woman, or child on this planet that could honestly say that I am a patriot. But even I am forced to cry out that we deserve better. Even still, I believe in blame where blame is due, and in this case America must share a decent percentage of the blame for our own televisual misfortunes. They say that the best way to improve yourself is to look to the most successful person in a field and copy what they produce as legally as possible, and this is what I suggest we as Americans do. After all, it seems to be working out so far in the field of sitcoms. But in terms of televised dramas we haven’t been doing that well enough. Right about now, science fiction (okay, the British and French share the credit for that one, although sci-fi is ours) seems to be the big thing in TV drama, and yet for all the efforts we put out (Lost, Heroes, Journeyman, Flash Forward, and even this new reboot of V seem to fall into this category), we get lengthy shots of attractive people in extraordinary situations standing around and looking confused and/or aloof.
Didn’t Nathan get the memo? Look away from the camera, like you don’t even care it’s there. No wonder he got fired.
Meanwhile the British, arguably the host nation of the greatest current TV, sit back weekly and (as a nation, mind you) enjoy a new episode of Doctor Who. How does it compare to American television? Well, within the four seasons that the new series alone has accrued, they’ve saved the Earth, the Universe, time itself, and then reality itself all from different and separate enemies. And… Heroes is still fighting Sylar, and Lost doesn’t know what the island actually is (which, in a way, makes it the only show right now that doesn’t know what it’s own setting is, or at least isn’t telling the audience.) Journeyman and Flash Forward seem to be more time travel oriented shows; however Journeyman decided that past the whole time traveling to random points thing, no actual science fiction was actually needed and it could fall back on marriage complications to pass the time. The entire point of Flash Forward deals with awaiting a future event where we already know what happens. This means that either they get to the end of the season and finish the story with what we already have seen, or its popularity leads them to slowing down the time between now and the big reveal, which will inevitably make for a longer couple of months within the story than the time dilution of Archie comics. Lastly, V may have aliens, but really it’s just one group of aliens, which is at this point pretty weak in sci-fi terms. Unless they suddenly give us a cantina full of new species, we’re dealing with a threat that Doctor Who can (and has) whipped in one episode.
What I propose is simple. First, pick out what Doctor Who does well. I’m going to say, an overall tone that is more “happy-go-lucky in space” instead of “moping around because I have superpowers/am stuck on Action Island”; make the characters do something other than look dejected and sulkily discuss how bad things are; and have actually interesting things happen. Somewhere along the line it seems as if American television somehow lost its dictionary, and when it got it back, found that the E section had been ripped out so they couldn’t look up what “entertaining” meant. They’ve forgotten that Star Wars and Indiana Jones are more fun to watch than the cinematic equivalent of Junior High politics (stretched out over six seasons, of course, and taunting you with the broken promise of time travel, aliens, robots, or something). They forgot that nice, kind, good natured protagonists saving the day are in fact better than sexy people bickering. Lastly, it has been entirely forgotten that an emotional scene is far more effective when it is interspersed among lighter fare, and that when your entire show is one long heartbreak, it immediately loses its dramatic edge after about two episodes. So America, you know what to do. Copy the Hell out of Doctor Who in tone and ideas, and maybe, just maybe, we won’t have to combine the Primetime Emmy’s with the Daytime Emmy’s.
Still not convinced? Okay, how’s this for proof:
Ladies and gentlemen (of, um, the blog), haven't you said these (or some variation of these) words several times in the past. I'm talking of course about that age old, most American of medias, television (specifically TV dramas), and even more importantly, I'm talking about how terrible it is right now. But unfortunately, unlike the economy, wars, and global warming, this seems to be an affliction only suffered by America. This is a travesty! America invented television, and yet television gives us nothing but a terrifying amalgamation of the worst shows in the world, and canceling those very few that are actually good.
Now, I do believe that there isn’t a man, woman, or child on this planet that could honestly say that I am a patriot. But even I am forced to cry out that we deserve better. Even still, I believe in blame where blame is due, and in this case America must share a decent percentage of the blame for our own televisual misfortunes. They say that the best way to improve yourself is to look to the most successful person in a field and copy what they produce as legally as possible, and this is what I suggest we as Americans do. After all, it seems to be working out so far in the field of sitcoms. But in terms of televised dramas we haven’t been doing that well enough. Right about now, science fiction (okay, the British and French share the credit for that one, although sci-fi is ours) seems to be the big thing in TV drama, and yet for all the efforts we put out (Lost, Heroes, Journeyman, Flash Forward, and even this new reboot of V seem to fall into this category), we get lengthy shots of attractive people in extraordinary situations standing around and looking confused and/or aloof.
Didn’t Nathan get the memo? Look away from the camera, like you don’t even care it’s there. No wonder he got fired.Meanwhile the British, arguably the host nation of the greatest current TV, sit back weekly and (as a nation, mind you) enjoy a new episode of Doctor Who. How does it compare to American television? Well, within the four seasons that the new series alone has accrued, they’ve saved the Earth, the Universe, time itself, and then reality itself all from different and separate enemies. And… Heroes is still fighting Sylar, and Lost doesn’t know what the island actually is (which, in a way, makes it the only show right now that doesn’t know what it’s own setting is, or at least isn’t telling the audience.) Journeyman and Flash Forward seem to be more time travel oriented shows; however Journeyman decided that past the whole time traveling to random points thing, no actual science fiction was actually needed and it could fall back on marriage complications to pass the time. The entire point of Flash Forward deals with awaiting a future event where we already know what happens. This means that either they get to the end of the season and finish the story with what we already have seen, or its popularity leads them to slowing down the time between now and the big reveal, which will inevitably make for a longer couple of months within the story than the time dilution of Archie comics. Lastly, V may have aliens, but really it’s just one group of aliens, which is at this point pretty weak in sci-fi terms. Unless they suddenly give us a cantina full of new species, we’re dealing with a threat that Doctor Who can (and has) whipped in one episode.
What I propose is simple. First, pick out what Doctor Who does well. I’m going to say, an overall tone that is more “happy-go-lucky in space” instead of “moping around because I have superpowers/am stuck on Action Island”; make the characters do something other than look dejected and sulkily discuss how bad things are; and have actually interesting things happen. Somewhere along the line it seems as if American television somehow lost its dictionary, and when it got it back, found that the E section had been ripped out so they couldn’t look up what “entertaining” meant. They’ve forgotten that Star Wars and Indiana Jones are more fun to watch than the cinematic equivalent of Junior High politics (stretched out over six seasons, of course, and taunting you with the broken promise of time travel, aliens, robots, or something). They forgot that nice, kind, good natured protagonists saving the day are in fact better than sexy people bickering. Lastly, it has been entirely forgotten that an emotional scene is far more effective when it is interspersed among lighter fare, and that when your entire show is one long heartbreak, it immediately loses its dramatic edge after about two episodes. So America, you know what to do. Copy the Hell out of Doctor Who in tone and ideas, and maybe, just maybe, we won’t have to combine the Primetime Emmy’s with the Daytime Emmy’s.
Still not convinced? Okay, how’s this for proof:
Every single episode.
EVERY SINGLE EPISODE!
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