…’cuz, yeah, it’s the only one we’ve watched. And not quite all the way through. But almost. Still, it was pretty cool, especially the title: BORGEN. Heh, heh, an entire show about Borg politics. Genius!
Borgen? Borg? It’s killin’ me!
Category: Opinion
There’s Money In The Banana Stand (or so Netflix hopes…)
There are a lot of reasons I’ve been closely following the reboot of Arrested Development scheduled for 2013. One of the big ones is seeing what will happen when Netflix picks up a show cancelled by a network and distributes new episodes (which they will also be doing with the short-lived Terra Nova).
In keeping with the Dan Harmon theme of yesterweek, I’m very curious about the Power of Fandom in the internet age of television, and what it has achieved in this case. It’s not news that ratings are the dinosaur of television trend-telling, since people no longer rush home from their insurance-selling jobs to have a scotch and watch Happy Days (clearly what everyone did from 1950-1999).
The majority of viewers watch television whenever, wherever, and however they like. They may not even know when a show actually airs in real time. So, the new million dollar question on the table is how to tell what’s resonating with them and what isn’t, and once we know that, what we do about it.
“Who are we to make these decisions? We’re the media elite.” (News from The Newsroom)
I have yet to read a single review of The Newsroom that doesn’t reveal as much or more about the character of the reviewer as it does about the show itself. Although there are many (many) sins of television making of which I could accuse Aaron Sorkin, uncomplicated is not one of them.
What the hullabaloo reveals is a cultural conversation many of us are having right now, yearning for intelligence in news. Sorkin takes that conversation (not a new revelation by any means) and runs with it – and apparently (despite mixed reviews) popularly enough to garner a second season.
“The Fien Print” on ABC’s NASHVILLE
Even we can enjoy a good soap. (Hey, can’t always be supercool, y’know?) And wouldn’t it be wonderful if this turned out to be just that? Gotta love the smell of betrayal in the morning! Yeah!
Take Me To The Pilots ’12: ABC’s ‘Nashville’ – by Daniel Fienberg
Web Power Grows, Soon It Will Eat TV
Or maybe television’s already done for. Yesterday, for example, Fox premiered two new TV series on the web, although they won’t appear on, you know, Fox TV, till tonight.
Oh, and these weren’t just any web premieres. These were on f-ing Facebook. Well, kinda makes sense. Zuckermantown is as close to the closed up pablum as the web gets these days. So close that we often find ourselves thinking of it as AOL Revisited.
BEN & KATE
The times they are a’changin’. And just between us, we here at TVWriter™ are mightily well-disposed toward change.