Someone here said that Lost is good. And I suppose that there might just be a chance that there is a good hour-long thriller out there, but I didn’t want to waste the hour to take a chance on Lost; the odds were very much against it because TV SUCKS.
The networks and cable; comedies, dramas, reality shows; game shows, talk shows, sports; those purveyors of our horrors that are MTV, E!, BET, A&E… I honestly have given up on something good showing up on TV. Am I wrong? I might be, but I can’t stand to do more than flip channels for an hour each night.
Couple of rules here if you tell me something is good: HBO doesn’t count. If I have to pay $20 month extra for it, well then it might as well be a movie. I know HBO has good stuff, but I’ll rent it on DVD. Only other rule: It can’t be unceremoniously cancelled after 6 shows. Freeks & Geeks was great. Gone.
That show with Martin Donovan in a loony bin? Might have been good, but cancelled after 2 episodes. Wonderfalls? Had some good ideas, and gone in a flash.
And before you give me the old standbys: Daily Show is only really funny for the first 5 minutes of fake news and during Steven Colbert’s This Week in God. The ‘produced’ pieces are too long, and Stewart’s an awful interviewer. Conan: 15 years and his monlouge STILL sucks. The comedy is funny, but you have to sit through a lot of awful guests and bad jokes to get there.
Arrested Development: Yes, it is good. So is Aqua Teen Hunger Force. But I don’t think those two shows are enough to justify the medium. I’m about to cancel my (basic) cable completely, and use the box to watch DVDs. Am I missing anything?
I watch TV. LOST is a damn good show. Reality TV doesn’t get much better than Project Runway, and The West Wing has reinvented itself this season (a new presidential election is being set up for November 05 sweep weeks with Alan Alda going up against Jimmy Smits)–the cast has been dispersed across the three or four candidates currently in the “race” and the narrative feels less hermetic. Plus, Martin Sheen is doing some of his best work. Medium is interesting and seems to bend a lot of assumptions. 24 consistently entertains me even when I groan. And I like Numbers though I am not committed. I like TV but I also think it is valuable to me to monitor it for reasons both personal (college hoops, professional tennis) and professional, but if you think you can get by without it; I say cancel the cable.
i barely watch tv anymore. apart from hbo, the daily show, and the simpsons, the only thing i watch regularly is sports. if i could afford a tivo i might give things like “lost” a chance, but i can’t deal with commercial breaks. plus between the movies, the obsessive online game-play, the xbox, training fleas, making my own soap, recycling our waste and reading the good book i really don’t have the time.
Commercials kill me–and, frankly, so does dull exposition. Even in a show that sneaks out of the mediocrity allowed on most network (and cable) tv, the conventions of the commerical television form too often hobble the writing.
For instance, I kind of got into “Alias” on dvd, after Jeff recommended it. Kris really dug it, too, and in its second season there’s all this weird hyper-plotting with a baroque quasi-Nostradamus/DaVinci figure fueling contemporary paranoia and double-dealings and doppelgangers and… it was barely comprehensible, and amazingly paced. But even in that season, the inevitable breaks between acts — the fade to black where the commercials go — led to manipulations on either side of the black; they had to have a reaction shot, right after some big event, to take us to commercial, and following the fade there would be some character laboriously reminding us what was going on.
Bleah. HBO’s series don’t have commercials, so they avoid a lot of that without even trying. But they often go further; “The Sopranos” spits in the face (or just whacks) narrative expectations. I mean, 5 seasons in–and Tony hasn’t really changed at all. That is exactly pitch-perfectly attuned to the problems of therapy and identity–can we change? But it is also a loving, cynical jab at what we expect from our television shows: as characters grow and learn very special lessons, so do we. I remember, I think in Season 4, this amazing episode where Tony has given up on his Russian girlfriend, and she’s taken up with the local politico (Peter Riegert). Tony’s driving around, crying to a piece of pop maudlin crap songwriting, and you feel for the guy. (Gandolfini. I say this the way I say Conway. With awe.) Then Tony drives over to the politico’s house, brushes past his former girlfriend, and beats the politico with a belt, a look of determination on his face. Not rage, not passion–it’s just something he had to do. Wow. And wow.
I could offer up similar moments from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Deadwood,” and every aspect of the narrative arc in “The Wire”….
So I just avoid tv. Even tivo seems a waste to me. (That said, when “Lost” hits dvd, I’ll watch. I keep trying–and occasionally see something worth seeing. “Freaks and Geeks,” which we just finished, was pretty damn good.)
I ignored your rules about HBO. Why? Because it IS television. What makes “The Wire” and “Sopranos” great are exactly their commitment to the repetition of a series–they may be “as good as” movies, but they are very firmly products (for better and worse) of the medium. So they help remind us what the medium COULD be.
What about the sitcom, Mark? Sure there aren’t many good examples right now, but as a form–there’s much to be said for the history of the sitcom, from Jack Benny to Seinfeld. I remain fond of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” for its astonishing cast’s astonishing timing, even if the show is hit or miss.
yes, i forgot to mention “raymond”, which i don’t watch as regularly as i once did but always stop on when i pass by it. i think there’s another aspect of the sitcom, increasingly rarely given to us, that bears mentioning: on shows like “raymond” they also provide us with a fast disappearing bridge to comic forms of the past. peter boyle and doris roberts’ timing and interplay is all we have left of vivian vance and jack frawley or the writers on “the dick van dyke” show–the last connections to television’s vaudeville roots. i could watch the two of them do reaction shots all day long. okay, maybe not all day long.
am i nostalgically overstating the case?
Jeff – (I don’t think I know you, but hi) – yeah, i’ve seen some of Project Runway, and it IS one of my favorite reality shows – “favorite” being defined as being able to watch a segment without turning the channel. I also dig Animal Cops – partly b/c it is hosted by John Lurie – and partly b/c it shows how some people in urban America live. Which is that they live quite horribly.
For that reason I also really like the documentary series on MTV. Seriously, these are as disturbing as anything I’ve seen on Frontline. They never have voiceovers, they let the kids give justifications for their own insane actions, and I’m frequently left with jaw on the floor from some of them.
And I had forgotten about West Wing – yeah, it really is well done, but I haven’t seen any of the new episodes. Frankly, the fact that Bush is in the White House makes it difficult for me to watch (with apologies to Republicans here, like Bruns).
I totally agree that commercials are death to any kind of dramatic momentum, which is why Freaks & Geeks is even better on DVD than it was on NBC.
And that’s another reason that HBO doesn’t count. It doesn’t have to play by the same rules: 1. critical lauding is far more important to them than ratings, 2. sex, language not an issue. 3. no commercials, 4. You pay a lot extra for it. Mike can recount his 30 favorite scenes of Peter Riegert being whipped all he wants, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not regular TV. (by the way, if anyone saw Riegert and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC Countdown talking for about 15 minutes about Dean Wormer and the nature of playing it straight as comedy – holy shit – THAT was some good TV. Olbermann might just be funnier and sharper than Jon Stewart for that matter. …and a much better interviewer.)
Sitcoms: I think there are two on that are good: Everybody Loves Raymond is consistently funny with a great cast, and so is King of the Hill.
Last night I rented 2 DVDs, and only just realized they were both of TV shows: 1. Mike Leigh’s “Grown Ups” – Conveniently filed under the “comedy” section at the store, and the 2nd volume of the new Jack Benny collection. It’s interesting that in Benny, the commercials are frequently integrated into the show – one of the funniest sketches I saw in it was a 2 minute commercial for Eastern Airlines. Same with Humphrey Bogart shilling Lucky Strikes in the middle of another sketch in Vol. 1. Alas, these aren’t the prime Benny shows – those earliest TV appearances have never been released, but it’s fun to watch a 9 year old Harry Shearer trading lines with Benny in some of the sketches.
Looks like several of Mike Leigh’s TV movies have been newly released, and I will watch a couple more before I post here about them. But I will mention that on IMDB several English people commenting on Grown-Ups call it “hilarious.” Christ, watching a woman have a nervous breakdown, and everyone else living totally without joy is funny? The English are a lot tougher than I thought. Or more sadistic.
Records you should not ignore: Chris Bell – I am the Cosmos, Nina Nastasia – The Blackened Air.
And I totally agree with Arnab’s connection of Boyle & Roberts to the writers on the Dick Van Dyke show. They’re incredible.
the other thing about tv is that a commitment to a show is a weekly thing. and if you’re an obsessive like me you’ll keep giving an hour of your life per week (which could be more productively spent lying blankly on the couch) to a crappy show for years after it stops being any good (like i did with the fucking “x-files”). this is why i can’t let myself get into “lost” or “24” or anything–because no matter how good it is now there will be much more of it that will be bad and i will watch every ridiculous hour of it just to confirm that yes, it can get worse.
As text there is nothing more fascinating than the television commercial. I use them in class to talk about everything from dramatic form to ideology. I let my daughter watch them ocassionally and teach her to try and figure out what is being sold. It’s a game I keep on a short leash, but I figure these things are not going away and one must develop critical strategies. I also love Chris Bell’s I am the Cosmos . . . have you heard the Bell covers by the 4AD 90s band This Mortal Coil? And Arnab, aren’t you really talking about life in post #8. Perhaps you are in denial.
Jeff – You should perhaps check out those Jack Benny DVDs then purely for the commericals. In addition to the “live funny” commercials that Benny partakes in, the original produced commercials are left in the DVD, and by the 1963 show, they are very saavy in what they do. In one commercial the first 60 seconds or so is dedicated to the “life of the travel agent, and what he does to make your vacation a good one.” Only in the last 20 seconds or so does “Eastern Airlines” pop up. And if you like This Mortal Coil, all the more reason to check out Nina Nastasia. They’re similar to that in a lot of ways.
There was this amazing commercial for some insurance company a year or so ago that drew upon the history of professional football to sell its product. A careful manipulation of image and text married virtues like individualism, determination, and spirit to a black-and-white image of a caucasian football player from the early-1960s while virtues like hard work and labor were attached to a 1980s-era image (now in color) of a black player. We spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes unpacking the politics of race (and nostalgia) at work in that one 60 second spot. And the class had a field day taking apart a recent episode of CSI that involved a murder in Vegas’ transgendered community. In a scene set among a group of chorus dancers (working in a mainstream, tourist friendly supper-club), the students found they couldn’t tell for sure if all the women in the scene were indeed women. I hate CSI but as the most popular show on television (and the only show on network television that attracts a truly diverse audience) it is fascinating to watch and talk about. The politics of race at work in American Idol is also worthy of anyone’s time. Monitoring the chat-rooms surrounding that show reveals a lot more about America than reading the latest Toni Morrison novel. To be truly interested in the discourses of race in this country and not watch American Idol is a crime. I will look into the Benny discs as well Nastasia while encouraging everyone to dive deep into the bluegrass-Bjork stylings of singer/songwriter/harpist Joanna Newsome.
Okay.
1. Regarding HBO, Mark wrote:
That’s like saying, when evaluating fiction, that we shouldn’t count Pynchon, ’cause pretty obviously he doesn’t care about selling the books. I agree that there are important distinctions, and certainly the $ factor means that I too will end up watching the shows on dvd rather than kicking it out for cable. Still–it is television. The form remains the same, to paraphrase some dull old rock band, and if we want to talk about the form we need to talk about HBO.
2. Commercials. Okay, yeah: they’re worth examining, teaching. So fucking what? They’re still 99% dreck, and a enormously aggravating interruption which alters the possibilities of formal innovation and challenge and pleasure. So, teach Mr. Whipple all you want, but, c’mon, they’re still a damn good reason to avoid television.
3. Toni Morrison. Nice provocation. Dumb point, though–who reads fiction to get race in America “revealed” to them? I want revelation, maybe, or revision and subversion and reflection, but it ain’t sociology.
And if I want sociology, okay, I could watch “American Idol.” But pardon my skepticism: how come so many of my smart friends feel like they need to find a good solid quasi-academic reason for watching tripe? Revel in the pleasures of that particular text; I happen to find it excruciating, but I’ll readily admit–that’s simply a lack of pleasure. If we want to talk about how it works and what it does, yeah, I’m in. But I will avoid watching it for myself.
4. Jack Benny kicks ass.
I’m not exactly sure if I’m one of your “smart” friends and I thought I made a pretty decent argument for the “so fucking what” riposte (at least as far as my own personal viewing and pedagogical habits are concerned). Still, I’m turned on by all forms of entertainment (with the exception of car crashes but only because I have to slow down while others with more time on their hands gawk), and I don’t need an academic rationale to make my case. I like American Idol because I like to watch young people working their asses off for three minutes on stage to see if they can make it to the next round (and I appreciate, no matter how banal the product may be, the desire and effort and passion and ego that obviously goes into every choice–the extreme amount of work they must put in every day to be ready for the next big show and the intense emotionalism that accompanies every goodbye). The fact that some of my academic training comes into play is actually a bonus, because the conversations surrounding that show and its players are fascinating on so many levels and reveal so much more about America than Walter Mosely ever will (Reynolds provocation #2). One of the most enjoyable and frustrating things about watching television, particularly hour-long dramas, is the commercial breaks–the way the writers know how to structure their teleplays to make those three minutes of consumerism work in their favor. The sense of the narrative being disrupted and my desire to find out what happens next being put on hold (plus I can go grab something from the fridge). Hell, the way my investment in the show disciplines my bodily functions during those three minutes. That’s exciting and one of the joys of the medium–to be placed in suspended animation. To erase all that and watch the DVD strikes me as cheating (plus, I’ve got better things to watch on DVD than television shows).
You make a good point about writers structuring their teleplay to address the discontinuity (or hibernation) of the commercial. But I can’t for the life of me think of a show that really uses/exploits that break, beyond the ‘cliffhanger’ mentality. Hm… but it makes good sense: here’s an aspect of form which pre-determines certain structural possibilities. Now what do good writers do with that?
Reveal–pah!
And I like cheating. It’s what makes playing games fun.
“Ah, TV (said in the accents of “The Continental”) We know it is no good for us, but we give in for the sensual pleasure of the moment!”
i’ve heard the bluff “I’m going to cancel cable!” many times before, as well as making it myself (never following up on it and in fact, relishing the brief space of time when I HAD EVERY CHANNEL–BASIC AND PREMIUM–AVAILABLE ON DIRECTV. It reminds me of an exchange from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. After Shake has destroyed the TV set for the umpteenth time, Frylock buys a nice new deluxe wide-screen set. Meatwad says “but I thought you hate TV.” Frylock answers, “Yeah, but we fuckin’ need it!” it’s all a load of crap, i never watch it (except for HBO and sports and a few other things and the daily show and…), i watch it only for reasons of cultural analysis….and on and on. Hey Daddy-O, relax and enjoy it! Escape is futile, assimilation inevitable.
Seems like there are several reasons to watch TV: 1.) it kills time. I can spend a lot of time simply switching through the channels and getting a couple of minutes of a hundred different shows. This activity can be a pleasure in itself. 2.) it provides fragmentary moments of pleasure unavailable elsewhere, as the Jack Benny discussion demonstrates. Jackie Gleason, Dick Van Dyke, Don Knotts and the like…You can wade through hours of crap but then find a moment or gesture that redeems the medium. do you want to give up TV entirely and risk missing Triumph ripping into some puffed up “celebrity” (“Hey, Fabio, ‘I can’t believe you’re not gay!’)3.) everyone else is watching it. what makes you so special? even when it’s crap, wouldn’t you prefer to be in the know rather than holding out as some kind of media hermit? and then the last perhaps most thorny issue 4) cultural analysis. everyone here is some kind of goddamn egghead, no? personally I do not much care for the academic “specialists” who (as one told me once in USC’s graduate lounge)”cannot bear to watch TV and would rather read.” as though committing yourself to Austen or modernist poetry or whatever somehow is incompatible with knowing and paying attention to the culture around you, even if most of it is a river of ephemeral and annoying crap. being an antiquarian is entirely different from being an engaged analyst/intellectual. The middle-management specialist type makes the distinction between “intellectual†(reading, researching, etc.) and “non-intellectual†(TV) that shows they have already succumbed to the power of the bogus cultural split they are ostensibly “critiquing.â€
That said, I’m no popular culture celebrant like other elements in the university who piss themselves over the equally bogus but infinitely useful idea of “the low†battling the “high†culture; for the most part this battle is a theoretical construction designed as a means of self-aggrandizement by the “popular culture†theorist who no longer has to do the difficult work of explaining how elements of high culture might, in fact, be libratory and elements of low culture repressive and conservative. So TV gets rejected by the snobs and embraced by the psuedo-populists and both are beside the point. Maybe the only way to make sense of it is to take the general reaction seriously as a starting point—equal parts revulsion and disgust and pleasure and fascination. Even if I stopped watching TV and devoted my extra time to reading Voltaire in French, why would I be any less of a sick/healthy cultural hybrid, more interested in the comic interplay between an old ugly opinionated Jew like Howard Cosell and a charismatic black radical like Muhammed Ali (which you can frequently see on Classic ESPN) than in The Great Books of the World?
So, Mark, when in doubt—do it MORE. More channels, more HBO, more Aqua Teen,more crap, more commercials!
Frisoli–fucking brilliant!
I will speak no more forever.
Thanks, Mike–but no reason to pull a Sitting Bull or Chief Joseph (who the hell said that??). keep talking.
The Shield starts Tuesday–another reason to watch TV.
i watch tv all the time. sometimes i even turn it on. ba-da-bumpsh!
by the way, the best triumph putdown was of tom arnold: “i have worms in my stool that had shows on the wb!”
i don’t channel surf anymore when my games/shows go to commercial; instead i flip over to foxnews–now, that’s entertainment!
Frisoli-
I think it was Harlan Ellison who said that.
Hi Michael – Your arguments are good – unlike Reynolds’ ramblings. There is joy in just flipping channels: meta-viewing. Perhaps hoping for a half-hour or hour or solid TV is too 20th Century of me. However, I do believe that TV has damaged our attention spans, and flipping faster certainly doesn’t help.
The Jack Benny show was a DVD, not on TV. And if it was on something like TV Land, they’d have cut out all the cool Lucky Strike and Eastern Airlines commercials.
After all this, I’m more inclined to not cancel cable outright (only b/c my rate is really cheap), but will prefer to watch HBO shows on DVD.
Thanks, Mark—i’m glad you and TV have reconciled at least temporarily. but I wonder about one things–was there a time when people had really long attention spans and were capable of great periods of concentration? maybe they were just bored. maybe now people have obtained other new skills–whatever remarkable feats of attention and focus that allow them to watch Saved by the Bell, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Walker-Texas Ranger, Dharma and Greg, etc. who knows what uses–good and evil–these new skills can be put to?
Mike–perhaps you’re right about Harlan Ellison. I am thinking of “I will fight no more forever”–what Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce said. he also said, “Hey, whitey…got your peace pipe right here!”
I was raised on television, watched it every chance I got, (used to read TV Guide cover to cover) yet I still read novels and plays (less than some, more than most), watch Tarkovsky and Bergman with great patience and enthusiasm. I direct plays, act in plays, help my daughter with her homework, manage to get through at least two New Yorker essays a week, etc. I know, I know bully for me, but I think the whole attention span argument is consverative propaganda and paranoia. I do, however, advocate for media literacy.
I was going to agree with Jeff, but I stopped reading during the second parenthetical. It was confusing.
And Frisoli, I was fucking around. Ellison said something like “I have no mouth yet I must scream,” which I always am muttering to myself. You’re probably right that it was Chief Joseph.