When Did TV Get So Good?
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
As someone who is far more interested in what is happening on TV than what is happening in film these days... glad you noticed?
It is worth noting that from a generalised perspective the advent of distribution platforms like Netflix and the technology to support them has been adapted far better by TV than it has been by the film industry. Whereas the latter has been fighting tooth and nail over ever concession and slight the former has almost embraced the "problem", often in spite of itself. Popular shows like True Detective, I just got done with the latest episode and was quite pleased, exist as global phenomenon partially because of how easy it is to get access to the content outside of its intended distribution zone and while we see more "Global" releases of big budget films these days than we did a decade ago (as far as I'm aware) there is still a very important language gap to overcome. The people following TV shows have bridged that masterfully, with accurate and relevant subtitles in languages as diverse as Swedish or Siamese being available for just about everything within the day of its airing.
To continue that point some of the biggest and most culturally "popular" TV of the last few years has been recorded and then distributed across with world with more efficiency than it would be possible for a larger corporate distribution system to achieve and this has only been helping their popularity and more importantly sales. Breaking Bad has _never_ been broadcast in the UK, ever, and was only available in the whole of the British Isles on TG4 the Gaelic channel based on the west of Ireland (with decent subs too). No cross-Atlantic broadcaster covered it either, this gap has actually resulted in the creation of premium channels across Europe the sole purpose of which is to rebroadcast American drama and comedy that we wouldn't otherwise get. Despite that gap, and before the release of the DVD's or the proliferation of availability on iTrunes or NetFlix, almost _everyone_ I knew and most of their friends had seen up to the most recent episode released in the US.
That is a large and primed market. One that is more motivated and interested in the product with almost no advertising dollars spent than the most outrageous budgets could possibly be generate for film. This is why TV is slowly migrating to the fore, not because they've fought off the pirates "harming the industry" but because they embraced them and in some cases almost used them to preload markets. DVD sales for Breaking Bad were off the charts here in the UK, heck I remember going to the cinema early last year and seeing an advertisement for the entire netflix service that almost exclusively focused on the fact that they had Breaking Bad. This isn't just benefiting critical darlings like Breaking Bad but also comparatively less well known shows like the aforementioned Brooklyn 99 which was so massively popular here, despite never actually being legally available, that it was immediately optioned for broadcast by several broadcasters as soon as they could.
Game of Thrones, Person of Interest(which based what I see on the seed/peer list regularly outshines everything in downloads) and other shows like that which have varying degrees of solid publicity and good broadcast ranges are getting massive boosts from a market of people who don't pay for it or generate any income in terms of advertising. The relative neutrality of broadcasters towards that group has actually buoyed the market to new heights.
It is worth noting that from a generalised perspective the advent of distribution platforms like Netflix and the technology to support them has been adapted far better by TV than it has been by the film industry. Whereas the latter has been fighting tooth and nail over ever concession and slight the former has almost embraced the "problem", often in spite of itself. Popular shows like True Detective, I just got done with the latest episode and was quite pleased, exist as global phenomenon partially because of how easy it is to get access to the content outside of its intended distribution zone and while we see more "Global" releases of big budget films these days than we did a decade ago (as far as I'm aware) there is still a very important language gap to overcome. The people following TV shows have bridged that masterfully, with accurate and relevant subtitles in languages as diverse as Swedish or Siamese being available for just about everything within the day of its airing.
To continue that point some of the biggest and most culturally "popular" TV of the last few years has been recorded and then distributed across with world with more efficiency than it would be possible for a larger corporate distribution system to achieve and this has only been helping their popularity and more importantly sales. Breaking Bad has _never_ been broadcast in the UK, ever, and was only available in the whole of the British Isles on TG4 the Gaelic channel based on the west of Ireland (with decent subs too). No cross-Atlantic broadcaster covered it either, this gap has actually resulted in the creation of premium channels across Europe the sole purpose of which is to rebroadcast American drama and comedy that we wouldn't otherwise get. Despite that gap, and before the release of the DVD's or the proliferation of availability on iTrunes or NetFlix, almost _everyone_ I knew and most of their friends had seen up to the most recent episode released in the US.
That is a large and primed market. One that is more motivated and interested in the product with almost no advertising dollars spent than the most outrageous budgets could possibly be generate for film. This is why TV is slowly migrating to the fore, not because they've fought off the pirates "harming the industry" but because they embraced them and in some cases almost used them to preload markets. DVD sales for Breaking Bad were off the charts here in the UK, heck I remember going to the cinema early last year and seeing an advertisement for the entire netflix service that almost exclusively focused on the fact that they had Breaking Bad. This isn't just benefiting critical darlings like Breaking Bad but also comparatively less well known shows like the aforementioned Brooklyn 99 which was so massively popular here, despite never actually being legally available, that it was immediately optioned for broadcast by several broadcasters as soon as they could.
Game of Thrones, Person of Interest(which based what I see on the seed/peer list regularly outshines everything in downloads) and other shows like that which have varying degrees of solid publicity and good broadcast ranges are getting massive boosts from a market of people who don't pay for it or generate any income in terms of advertising. The relative neutrality of broadcasters towards that group has actually buoyed the market to new heights.
TV has always been been that movies. It's just a shame it still clings to completely outdated business model.
I hope you meant that as a joke. Otherwise, you mean to say you're genuinely surprised that Bob watches MSNBC (something I figured you would have picked up if you watched his videos) or you think Bob's revealing some sort of secret (which is about as closely kept as Victoria's), and I don't know which one is worse. And if that's the case, I hope you have some duct tape wrapped around your head because it may blow your mind to find out that fish swim, grass is green, and fire is warm.strumbore said:
Forget MSNBC. But fucking CNN?strumbore said:
<quote=MovieBob>
Political shop-talk banter, white suburban midlife ennui and familial melodrama are seen as innately smarter/worthier than superheroes or scifi/fantasy
There hasn't been a good, original sci-fi movie since The Matrix back in '99. And even then, TV has films beat. I mean, c'mon - Star Trek, X-Files, Babylon 5, Firefly... you can't beat that list.
At any rate, my favorite shows have to be True Detective, Orange is the New Black, Game of Thrones... and can I put in Top Gear?
<youtube=QQh56geU0X8>
<youtube=Sp4L7_kmAOg>
Because Top Gear is so good.
It likely has a LOT to do with the fact that film has went REALLY down hill over the last decade or two and seemingly gets worse each year. The movie industry has become this ecosystem of serials and sequels that has overpowered development as a whole. It used to be hard enough to pitch a single film, nowadays you have to pitch not only the film itself but a franchise behind it so as the studio has faith the money will be rolling long enough for it to be worth their investment. Julie Delphi was recently bemoaning how there is no such thing as an indie scene in cinema any more for example.
So in this world where there is such desperation for the next big trilogy we see things like The Hobbit get strung out to encompass 3 films, or Disney has lined up an entire brigade of super soldiers and an impending army of clones So the days when a film was its own singular entity, are being strangled out of existence under the glut of big name blockbuster franchises.
Now this isnt to say TV is all that much better, but at least with television it actually lends itself to this sort of long arching continuity format and it can do it infinitely better than film can ever hope to. All the while TV still has with its smaller budgets and infinitely more vast broadcast space to fill, the capacity to appeal to more niche audiences and try riskier endeavors. In all honesty this is pretty basic things you would expect anyone who makes a career out of either medium would understand fluently.
Oh yeah and btw. I have never, nor would I ever watch the Godfather and would likely slap the taste out of any mouth that would even suggest that is something worth being shocked by.
So in this world where there is such desperation for the next big trilogy we see things like The Hobbit get strung out to encompass 3 films, or Disney has lined up an entire brigade of super soldiers and an impending army of clones So the days when a film was its own singular entity, are being strangled out of existence under the glut of big name blockbuster franchises.
Now this isnt to say TV is all that much better, but at least with television it actually lends itself to this sort of long arching continuity format and it can do it infinitely better than film can ever hope to. All the while TV still has with its smaller budgets and infinitely more vast broadcast space to fill, the capacity to appeal to more niche audiences and try riskier endeavors. In all honesty this is pretty basic things you would expect anyone who makes a career out of either medium would understand fluently.
Oh yeah and btw. I have never, nor would I ever watch the Godfather and would likely slap the taste out of any mouth that would even suggest that is something worth being shocked by.
This should be cool. I hope they are done Intermission style rather than AoS. I'm less interested in recaps with stream of conscience commentary than big picture, critical analysis. I'll still read it either way, and I assume AoS is a more efficient use of time.
Wow, Moviebob is really covering the board of popular culture. Films, Television, Games and Skits. All he needs is Songs and Anime to get the works.
Wow, Moviebob is really covering the board of popular culture. Films, Television, Games and Skits. All he needs is Songs and Anime to get the works.
A perpetually outdated model in that what was popular in movies 5 years ago is what's popular on TV today. Call it trickle-down geekonomics. Almost every show on the CW is derivative of something that had a boon of popularity with the Gen Y crowd. Vampires, check, superheroes, check, serialized romcom, check and check. Starz had a Spartacus TV series that ripped off all the stylization and action of 300. HBO's popular series Game of Thrones and True Blood are both book adaptations of the fantastical variety, a trend that again first really gained momentum in film with Harry Potter, Twilight, and Lord of the Rings.Crazy Zaul said:
Probably the one thing I truly like with cultural trends from the film industry filtering down into television is that it's making high brow sci fi cool again. With movies like Oblivion, District 9, and Elysium comes the idea that fiction that makes you think is a safe investment. So now we have Almost Human and Defiance, both series set in the future, one of the high tech, urban variety, the other post-apocalyptic, giving us storylines that would have easily felt at home on Babylon 5 or Star Trek in the past.
The most recent one on that list was Firefly 2002... You're also forgetting movies like Elysium, District 9, Inception, The Cell, Pitch Black, Titan AE, Donnie Darko, Evolution, Final Fantasy (I had been leaving out movies based on an existing franchise, therefore not original, but since this one had nothing to do with the games, it fits), The One, 28 Days Later, Equilibrium, Minority Report, Reign of Fire, Paycheck, Appleseed, Primer, District 13, Immortel, Night Watch... i'll stop there, but there were plenty of good original movies since 1999. There were even a few outstanding ones.RA92 said:
When I said original, I meant genre-defining like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Terminator, Matrix etc. I admit to be being a bit facetious when I said no good sci fi movies have been out the past decade, but in your list the only ones original I would say are Donnie Darko, Primer, District 9, Minority Report and Inception (okay that's quite a few). A few of them I wouldn't classify as sci fi (Final Fantasy, Night Watch). And Elysium was just terrible. As for Appleseed, I counter with Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. And if we're talking anime as well, I can also include Planetes, Ergo Proxy, Serial Experiments Lain, Cowboy Bebop, Texhnolyze etc.Nimzabaat said:
As for my original list, I was actually just making a comparison with 90's stuff, otherwise I would have included Defiance and Almost Human, both pretty recent.
I guess I wish there were more sci fi TV series, because I tend to enjoy the pacing of a long-running overarching arcs. Unless it's something niche like Donnie Darko, movies just tend to go for more bombast than substance. I like that sometimes (hello Pacific Rim), but loathe it when something cerebral like Star Trek is turned into an action wankfest that are the modern J J Abrams flicks.
Well, this sounds like it'll be fun. For a while now I've preferred television as a medium to film, it lends itself better to the long story arcs, and character development of large casts, things that film just can't do, because of time constraints. Of course, television didn't used to do those all that much either, but over the past decade or two the old formula of returning to status quo after every episode (so as not to intimidate new/casual viewers) has fallen more and more out of favour and given way to serialized dramas. Comedies are still usually sitcoms though, but then I don't really care for them, so whatever.
Somehow TV doesn't seem to be as burdened by committees or coldly calculated money grabbing casting choices and soothing tropes. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but creativity seems to be running on a looser leash on our TV's. TV shows seem less fearful of having fun and being insolent, which is right up my sensitivity alley (boom! metaphorical innuendo phrasing!)
Ironically, I haven't turned on my TV in months, yet I'm watching more TV than ever. Even cable companies hijacking sports as part of their exclusivity deals has driven me away from the living room box. But the quality of some shows, is just too good for me to ignore.
I've always been more of a comedy man, I find comedy clever and cheeky, as opposed to manipulating and hawking on our human weaknesses for a heart-string tug. And TV is just the place for the sharpest writers and their unbridled buffoons. Here to follow, pardon the form, a quick heap of my own stash:
Brooklyn 99, which is just excellent, you mentioned it, hopefully you'll drawl on about it soon because I was hooked from the moment I saw it. It's one of those instant classics. Joe Lo Truglio is a master jester, such range and depth.
BroadCity is finally a show about human women! Real human women as if they were regular people! I couldn't believe it, but it's true. Turns out when it comes to dealing with living in the city on your own, women are just like men. Who knew!?
Community is sensational, I'm just dropping names here. It's just relentlessly witty, dense rapid fire comedy with penchant for the absurd and over the top. It's too good for a teaser paragraph.
Portlandia with punk-rocking, Sleater Kinney's Carrie, Brownstein and SNL's Fred Armisen is just tone perfect. And the tone is indescribably hysterical. Both are true comedic geniuses on the show, it's marvelous to behold that this show exists, in form and concept and that it is executed so perfectly.
Party Down from a while back, it's still one of the best sitcoms I've seen, and so many stars have come out of that show, truly a lightning-in-a-bottle little run they had.
New Girl boasts a ridiculously free style ensemble improv flow going for it. It's some sort of funny banter parkour.
Of course setting the trail ablaze, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia came out of nowhere and was such a fresh air of decay and human misery, such vile endearing scumbags, in the first seasons making clever, poignant social commentaries without losing a comedic beat.
The inexplicable hilariousness of John C. Reily's performance as the titular doctor Steve Brule in "Check it Out! With Dr. Steve Brule". Inexplicable to your friends that is, some will get it immediately, some will never.
Remember Flight Of the Conchords? NewsRadio before that, in the 90s!
Eastbound and Down is easily the most hilarious opera I've seen, unfurling in 4 acts nonetheless! It's truly a grandiose arc and tale of honour, pride, excess, love, family, everybody needs to see to coarsest opera ever made.
How about oversees with Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look, The Mighty Boosh (!!!!!!)
Or adult oriented Animation!? Archer, Frisky Dingo, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Regular Show, to name a few.
Look some of those up if you're into clever, insolent, well written, outlandish comedy. You're in for a treat!
Somehow intelligent rebels have found their way into TV's realm, and it's a privileged time to be an spectator.
Looking forward to more Movie Bob (Chipman!) editorials on what is one of the best comedic media out there!
Ironically, I haven't turned on my TV in months, yet I'm watching more TV than ever. Even cable companies hijacking sports as part of their exclusivity deals has driven me away from the living room box. But the quality of some shows, is just too good for me to ignore.
I've always been more of a comedy man, I find comedy clever and cheeky, as opposed to manipulating and hawking on our human weaknesses for a heart-string tug. And TV is just the place for the sharpest writers and their unbridled buffoons. Here to follow, pardon the form, a quick heap of my own stash:
Brooklyn 99, which is just excellent, you mentioned it, hopefully you'll drawl on about it soon because I was hooked from the moment I saw it. It's one of those instant classics. Joe Lo Truglio is a master jester, such range and depth.
BroadCity is finally a show about human women! Real human women as if they were regular people! I couldn't believe it, but it's true. Turns out when it comes to dealing with living in the city on your own, women are just like men. Who knew!?
Community is sensational, I'm just dropping names here. It's just relentlessly witty, dense rapid fire comedy with penchant for the absurd and over the top. It's too good for a teaser paragraph.
Portlandia with punk-rocking, Sleater Kinney's Carrie, Brownstein and SNL's Fred Armisen is just tone perfect. And the tone is indescribably hysterical. Both are true comedic geniuses on the show, it's marvelous to behold that this show exists, in form and concept and that it is executed so perfectly.
Party Down from a while back, it's still one of the best sitcoms I've seen, and so many stars have come out of that show, truly a lightning-in-a-bottle little run they had.
New Girl boasts a ridiculously free style ensemble improv flow going for it. It's some sort of funny banter parkour.
Of course setting the trail ablaze, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia came out of nowhere and was such a fresh air of decay and human misery, such vile endearing scumbags, in the first seasons making clever, poignant social commentaries without losing a comedic beat.
The inexplicable hilariousness of John C. Reily's performance as the titular doctor Steve Brule in "Check it Out! With Dr. Steve Brule". Inexplicable to your friends that is, some will get it immediately, some will never.
Remember Flight Of the Conchords? NewsRadio before that, in the 90s!
Eastbound and Down is easily the most hilarious opera I've seen, unfurling in 4 acts nonetheless! It's truly a grandiose arc and tale of honour, pride, excess, love, family, everybody needs to see to coarsest opera ever made.
How about oversees with Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look, The Mighty Boosh (!!!!!!)
Or adult oriented Animation!? Archer, Frisky Dingo, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Regular Show, to name a few.
Look some of those up if you're into clever, insolent, well written, outlandish comedy. You're in for a treat!
Somehow intelligent rebels have found their way into TV's realm, and it's a privileged time to be an spectator.
Looking forward to more Movie Bob (Chipman!) editorials on what is one of the best comedic media out there!
My wife has taken to watching Arrow.
I started making a game of counting how many seconds passed between cuts- changes in camera angle etc.
It was a rare bird when more than five seconds passed between one cut and another. In action scenes, especially in early episodes, it was not an infrequent occurrence to watch thirty seconds pass with hardly a full second of continuous footage.
I mean, the writing is also cliche-ridden and contrived; the acting is largely wooden, and the characters are largely unlikable, shallow, and uninteresting.
But it's the editing that threatens to give me a migraine.
However, it does feature lots of chiseled people in dramatic lighting.
(Got to love heroes who go off about how killing is never their first option and then go about shooting henchmen in the chest left, right, and center...)
...Okay, rant over.
I started making a game of counting how many seconds passed between cuts- changes in camera angle etc.
It was a rare bird when more than five seconds passed between one cut and another. In action scenes, especially in early episodes, it was not an infrequent occurrence to watch thirty seconds pass with hardly a full second of continuous footage.
I mean, the writing is also cliche-ridden and contrived; the acting is largely wooden, and the characters are largely unlikable, shallow, and uninteresting.
But it's the editing that threatens to give me a migraine.
However, it does feature lots of chiseled people in dramatic lighting.
(Got to love heroes who go off about how killing is never their first option and then go about shooting henchmen in the chest left, right, and center...)
...Okay, rant over.
So bob about that weight you were talking about needing to lose... If you plan to review movies, talk about video games in a spoofy power rangers esque format, talk about whatever pops in your head for that week, write two columns for the escapist AND NOW add a 3rd column that involves you reviewing TV shows, I have to say you better put a treadmill in your living room and learn to type at a brisk jog because I don't see how you can do all that and maintain things like sleep or a social life or even stay connected with your family and loved ones.