Time now for the stats you’ve all been waiting for. Without further ado:
The 5 most visited articles on TVWriter™ during the year 2015 were, surprisingly to us, all permanent TVWriter™ resource pages. Namely:
Month: December 2015
Lew Ritter sees THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE
by Lew Ritter
THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE is an Amazon Studios series about an alternate history in which Germany and Japan triumphed in WWII and divided up the American continent. Adapted from an award winning novel by noted Sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick, it is produced by Ridley Scott and was developed as a series by FRANK SPOTNITZ, one of the writers behind the X- FILES.
The tone of the series is established at the beginning of the pilot with the haunting theme song in which a woman sings EDELWEISS, a paean to the German Father Land, while in the background, the map of the US shows the advancing German and Japanese forces.
The series begins in the United States, circa 1962. The eastern half of the country is part of the “Greater Nazi Reich,” and the western half now is called the “Japanese Pacific States.”
How to Generate a TV Golden Age
Critics keep saying that we’re in a Golden Age of quality TV, and, who knows, maybe we are. But don’t you wonder how we got here? What happened? What changed? As 2015 closes, it’s time for some insight into the year’s biggest media story:
by Joshua Gans
When we think of Golden Ages it is looking back and realising that things were better during some period of time; we just never realised it at the time. But we are currently living in a Golden Age of Television. It is better than at any point in its history. And what is more, we know it. That is simply a remarkable state of affairs.
When did the Golden Age begin? Many will mark 2008 as a turning point with Breaking Bad (or maybe a year earlier with Mad Men). Others will go back to 2002 and 2003 with The Wire, Battlestar Galactica and Lost. In reality, the Golden Age, as we know it, is really a phenomenon of the last five or six years as knowledge of great alternative programming became widespread. And there is no end in sight.
Troy DeVolld Tells Us What (Fill in the Blank) is Really Like
by Troy DeVolld
This year, I’ve given myself a great present for Christmas: A get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to the recurring question, “What’s (name of reality celebrity) really like?”
Ask anybody who’s met a celebrity exactly once what they think of them, and you’re going to get an absolute answer based on a tiny interaction. That moment eventually crystallizes into a summary “great guy/gal “or “total jerk/bitch” response. That assessment somehow never takes into account the way the celebrity was approached, as the teller/hero of the story, the “toucher of the garment” as it were, always bases their evaluation on how they were received in that moment. Someone I know scared the living hell out of a television actress recently, literally running after her in a parking lot to vomit praise at her. The verdict on return? “What an unfriendly bitch.”
Really?
Secrets to Downsizing Your Cable TV Bill
Here it is, our First Annual Year’s End Financial Tip, AKA a Quick Guide to Saving Bucks without Resorting to Cable Cutting. If that isn’t a great gift to give aspiring writers on a budget, then we dunno what is. Yay, TVWriter™!
(Yeah, that’s us following the First Rule of Showbiz: “If you don’t toot your own horn, nobody else will.”) Read and enjoy…and learn!
How One Couple Beat the Cable Company
by Steve Maas
The breaking point came in July 2012. Our Comcast bill for Internet, television, and phone hit $184 a month. And that was without premium channels like HBO. Add cell phones, and our total telecommunications bill was $244.