digitaldiscipline (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline) wrote2003-11-21 03:27 pm
digitaldiscipline) wrote2003-11-21 03:27 pm
Entry tags:
Boob Tube Ruminations
[inspired by something Critus wrote.
The question I now ponder on is this – Did the writers of Angel do her, and anyone else who tuned in to the show for the first time that night, a disservice?
I would say "yes." they were, to mix metaphors, rude, by not introducing a new guest to their friends. you could have played tour guide, saying "oh, that's so-and-so, he's such-and-such," but another first time viewer wouldn't necessarily have that.
think about how "outside" some new acquaintence would feel the first time they got together with your inner circle of friends for pizza - you have a shared history, a retinue of in-jokes and conversational asides that are a rich tapestry of meaning that are utterly, impenetrably opaque to someone new. i get the sense that this episode was like that.
those relationships developed over time, and it will take a new person a while to get up to speed, even with someone parenthetically filling in the back-story when someone steps into the kitchen to get more beer.
television without closure is nothing but soap operas, which are open-ended and pointless on purpose, because they need to go on forever. pat, 27 minute story arcs are cloying and dull, but require no committment. but the hour-long should have -some- ability to be seen in a vacuum, as it were.
i got hooked by a standalone X-Files [the fountain of youth episode in the florida forest, still the creepiest-ending episode i've ever seen]. I watched ST:TNG from the first to the end. I lost interest in DS9 when the plot arcs began wielding more weight than a single episode, or even a "To Be Continued..." could bear.
I resent the unspoken demand that season-long story arcs require my viewership to appreciate. television is leisure entertainment. books do not tell you to read them every thursday at eight. video games do not operate only on weekends. but television deigns to tell us when to give it our devotion and attention [tivo and its ilk notwithstanding]. . . and when you have a life beyond that, the "threat" of "missing something important" crosses a line, for me, from enjoyment to imposition, and turns watching a favorite show into work, or, little better, like going to church.
this may say more about my attitude about television than about television's place in the social consciousness. make of that what you will.
The question I now ponder on is this – Did the writers of Angel do her, and anyone else who tuned in to the show for the first time that night, a disservice?
I would say "yes." they were, to mix metaphors, rude, by not introducing a new guest to their friends. you could have played tour guide, saying "oh, that's so-and-so, he's such-and-such," but another first time viewer wouldn't necessarily have that.
think about how "outside" some new acquaintence would feel the first time they got together with your inner circle of friends for pizza - you have a shared history, a retinue of in-jokes and conversational asides that are a rich tapestry of meaning that are utterly, impenetrably opaque to someone new. i get the sense that this episode was like that.
those relationships developed over time, and it will take a new person a while to get up to speed, even with someone parenthetically filling in the back-story when someone steps into the kitchen to get more beer.
television without closure is nothing but soap operas, which are open-ended and pointless on purpose, because they need to go on forever. pat, 27 minute story arcs are cloying and dull, but require no committment. but the hour-long should have -some- ability to be seen in a vacuum, as it were.
i got hooked by a standalone X-Files [the fountain of youth episode in the florida forest, still the creepiest-ending episode i've ever seen]. I watched ST:TNG from the first to the end. I lost interest in DS9 when the plot arcs began wielding more weight than a single episode, or even a "To Be Continued..." could bear.
I resent the unspoken demand that season-long story arcs require my viewership to appreciate. television is leisure entertainment. books do not tell you to read them every thursday at eight. video games do not operate only on weekends. but television deigns to tell us when to give it our devotion and attention [tivo and its ilk notwithstanding]. . . and when you have a life beyond that, the "threat" of "missing something important" crosses a line, for me, from enjoyment to imposition, and turns watching a favorite show into work, or, little better, like going to church.
this may say more about my attitude about television than about television's place in the social consciousness. make of that what you will.