This is one I have no strong opinion about, primarily
because I have experience with one way, but little to no experience with the
other, so if I delineated a preference, it would be the product of prejudice
over personal knowledge, and nobody wants to read that. Especially this writer, who prides himself on
his, possibly illusory, evenhandedness.
I have written recently about the way in which technological
advances altered the way (half-hour) television shows were written. This led me to consider the technological
advances in the way television shows are currently consumed.
And now, the
“Nostalgia Portion” of the program. Have
a seat, slip on your “Mouska-ears” and join me nostalgically back in time.
There was a time, kiddies, before taping, before TiVo, before DVR (if that’s different
from TiVo), before Netflix, when, if you wanted to watch a
certain show, you had to be in front of your television at the specific time
that particular show was being aired.
Otherwise, you did not get to see it.
(Except possibly during summer reruns when some of the episodes were
rebroadcast.)
This was a time when there were only three channels (unless
you lived in Canada where there were also Canadian channels, which I never
watched unless there was a hockey game on one of them.)
At that juncture in televiewing history, the schedule was so
rudimentary, you could actually memorize when every single program on
television was on. (The weaker of memory
had TV Guide to assist them. I was a regular subscriber, but it was mostly
for the covers. Some of them were
artistic masterpieces. I saved all of
them. Then I went to camp, and when I
came home, my entire collection had mysteriously disappeared.)
In those days, every
program was “Appointment Television” because, if you missed that appointment,
you missed the program. Which was – wait
for it from the Old Guy – an arguably more exciting experience. Think of the difference between having candy
once a week and having candy whenever you want it. The latter sounds better in theory, but in
practice, you ultimately arrive at “Candy again?”,
and you make a face. Ending candy as a once
highly anticipated rarity.
The now available possibility of “Programming On Demand” – boxed
sets of entire series, Netflix, and a
rerun service my Time-Warner cable
provider market-savvily labels “On
Demand” – also makes it possible for,
what they call, “binge viewing”, wherein, if you don’t have a life and you
prefer it to watching a ballgame (which others
of us without a life enjoy) you can watch an entire series in a single sitting.
Here’s where I go sideways a little, but it’s all connected,
trust me.
The new technology has encouraged show creators to devise,
as has been prevalent in soap operas since their inception, extended – often
series-length – story arcs (because, unlike when there weren’t any, there are
now new-technologically-provided mechanisms for catching up.
In the era before these mechanisms, writers were required to
encapsulate each episode, so that every story terminated at the end of that particular
broadcast. Networks seemed to know the
audiences preferred it that way. And
this time, they were right.
Nothing made an old-time viewer angrier than to commit to an
episode (usually of an hour-long series), only to be confronted with the
dreaded “To Be Continued” at the end
of it. “To Be Continued” made old-time
viewers crazy. Nobody told us ahead of
time. It was like,
“We’re going to need another hour from you. And if you’re for some reason unavailable
‘same time, next week’, the entire hour you just sat through will have been
entirely wasted.”
I can’t tell you how much we hated that. You got close to the end of the episode, and
you felt the distinct sense that things were not, as expected, wrapping
up. The words, “Oh, no!” may have actually been vocalized at that point, our thoughts
being, “This episode may have been decent enough to waste an hour on. But two hours? I want my money back!”
From a writing standpoint, filming individualized episodes
allowed the show runners (or the networks) to “bury” the episodes that did not
turn out well. Since they was no
sequential storytelling involved, it didn’t matter in which order the episodes
were broadcast. A “stinkeroo” could thus
be strategically scheduled when another network was presenting a blockbuster,
like, say the Oscars when they were
popular, and nobody would even know it was on.
(Except for the person who wrote it, who undoubtedly believed that that
“clunker” episode was considerably better than people believed.)
Another reason for self-contained storylines was that, since
show producers (specifically, the lucky ones who made hits) had no control over
the order in which the episodes would be broadcast in syndication, an extended
story-arc series would become a hodgepodge due to “out of sequence”
presentation, turning it into an audience-befuddling syndication failure.
(A by-product of individualized episode-writing was the accepted
“conceit” that every episode was separate and distinct, the most recent outing rarely,
if ever, referencing anything that had happened before. This anomalous storytelling arrangement
generated a weird form of “Episodic Amnesia.” For example, in the course of its still-record
635 episodes, it allowed Gunsmoke’s
Marshal Matt Dillon to be shot a hundred or more times without anyone asking or
even wondering, “Why isn’t he dead by now?”
Or at least limping. The week
after a gunshot wound, Matt Dillon came back looking as fresh as if he had just
returned from vacation. He never once
acted “hurt.” In addition, Matt Dillon
also killed at least one desperado in every episode. Imagine “binge viewing” the marshal mowing
down 635 opponents. Or even fifty. You might
develop some serious concerns about his homicidal proclivities.)
Somebody once gave me a boxed set of my favorite hour show
possibly of all time, The West Wing. I watched a few episodes and then gave up,
partly out of diminishing interest, and partly because of certain technical difficulties
I was unable to overcome. (I was happy I
could get the thing to play on my television.
Helpful Tip: You have to
switch to “Video One” or you don’t get a picture. But you probably knew that already.)
Granted, I had already seen those West Wing episodes, many of them repeatedly, so there was no
impelling urgency. Still, some people
enjoy re-watching all the episodes of their favorite series at the same
time. Others appreciate the new
technology’s never-before-broadcast series, which, since all the episodes have already
been produced, they have the option of watching from beginning to end.
I’m not convinced I would have the patience.
This from a man who’s been known to watch up to five
successive episodes of the Law &
Order: SVU “Familiar Faces” Marathon without moving from his seat.
So there’s that.
Hey, I never promised you consistency.
Though I am not entire comfortable with its opposite.
1 comment:
You are so right! Wed night at 9... Dick Van Dyke. Nowadays, I have no appointments on TV.
. As soon as I like something, they move it around and I can't find it, so I give up.
I remember how exciting it was, reading the little teasers in the TV Guide, hinting at what was to come the next week. Now, who cares?
Must be getting old....
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