On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Mark Jeffries <[email protected]>wrote:
> Today's NYT op-ed page has an article by novelist Alissa Quart in which > she calls television "The Thinking Person's Entertainment" and brings up > all of the usual suspects: > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/tv-the-thinking-persons-entertainment-of-choice.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 > > All well and good, except that the only current series she brings up in > the article that you can get for free are "The Good Wife" and "Downton > Abbey"--and most of these compelling, thinking person's shows are only > available by paying more money to see. And even then, only a few channel > clicks away from "Breaking Bad' is Honey Boo Boo and the Real Housewives. > And on message boards you still have people complaining about how awful > television is, usually using reality shows as the prime example. Could it > be that our last great mass entertainment medium has become divided in two, > with the great unwashed watching CBS procedurals and Fox and TLC reality > shows while the 1% watches HBO and AMC drama series? (Of course, I realize > that the higher-minded types also watch Honey Boo Boo and "Idol" or > "Dancing" for ironic, post-modern winking reasons, as well, even if they > wouldn't be caught dead watching "2.5 Men.") > Quart's op-ed left me cold. She is giving, in my opinion, a very shallow view of the American viewing public and the relation of TV storytelling to their lives. It is possible that I am an outlier as I don't have cable and every attempt I've made to watch cable shows on Hulu or via downloads hasn't left me feeling I'm missing something. Looking over TV series over the decades, as is now possible with METV and RTV, there is a noticeable change in TV shows from decade to decade. The production values improve exponentially and quality control in general goes up. The sets are better, the actors are better, and productions seem so much tighter. That's as true of bad TV as well as good TV. What I think is different from 30 years ago is that the writers and network execs in those days assumed that people read serious novels when they wanted to engage with great ideas or long, drawn out stories, and they turned to TV for less involving entertainment. Today's audience has mostly abandoned novels which aren't light entertainment and they get that desire fulfilled by TV shows. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
