Is the novel dead in the U.S.? Replaced by deep, nuanced, characterization and subtext-laden TV series? Here’s what one deep thinker has to say:
by Ken Pisani
They say this is a new “golden age” of television, and whenever “they” say something so definitive we should be very skeptical—especially since TV’s first “golden age” gave us shows like Our Miss Brooks, Fibber McGee and Molly, and Heinz Studio 57, an anthology series about ketchup. But let’s concede the point, if only so I can continue writing about it.
The New York Times has posed the question, “Are the New ‘Golden Age’ TV Shows the New Novels?,” while Esquire has written “[T]he TV boxset is the ‘great literary novel of its day.’” Bill Moyers has compared David Simon’s hardscrabble take on Baltimore in The Wire to Charles Dickens’s depiction of “the smoky mean streets of Victorian London.” And I’m pretty sure another smart guy said something smart about smart TV writin’. The consensus seems to be that television has gotten more literary, regardless of the fact that most of us are watching Dancing with the Stars.read article
If you’re not up to speed, please start from the beginning HERE
by Aaron Walker Sr.
Inside the ore processing center, Marcus was fairing just fine despite his partner’s extreme tardiness. If there was one thing that irritated him about Daren, it was his lack of a strong work ethic. He was all talk, with his grandiose ideas and dreams, but never putting forth the effort required to make those things happen. Marcus felt that Daren spent too much time feeling sorry for himself, while drinking and getting high on zeth – a popular narcotic from the outer core. But the guy was good in a fight, and fiercely loyal, so he often looked past Daren’s apparent faults. But at that moment, he wished Daren would simply hurry up.read article
If you don’t read “The Bitter Script Reader” you’re missing one of the most perceptive writers about the subject of television ever to pick up an angry pen and let the media have it. (Okay, so he doesn’t use a pen, and he clearly loves TV, still…well, check it out:
Not what this article means when it says TV “evolves” but still kinda cool, yeah?
by The Bitter Script Reader
TV shows evolve over time. Certainly if you were to watch the first couple episodes of Seinfeld, you’d find them to be strange, slightly stilted and slow affairs, lacking the complex structure and quotable dialogue that made the show one of the last true mega-hits of the TV boom. And yet, you can still see the germs of genius, the voice that was unlike anything else on TV at the time. It’s not honed or polished yet, but it is distinct. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another show that took a season and a half to evolve into its ideal form. The moment “shit got real” is when Buffy lost her virginity to Angel, triggering his reversion to his evil personality and completely upending any sense of safety within the show. For that matter, the spinoff show starring Angel himself took at least 11 episodes to truly find its footing. It needed that time before its voice emerged and it found where it was going to fit into the Buffy-verse. Still, I’d argue that if you watch the first season of Buffy, it might be a little campier, cheaper and less ambitious than what followed, it still is distinct and unique in a way that draws you in. Joss Whedon’s voice is there – he’s just still finding his best keys.
One of my problems with the way network TV is run today is that programmers seem to have itchy trigger fingers. A new series could find itself canceled after two or three airings, which hardly seems like a fair amount of data on which to judge a series. Of course, it’s important to realize that by the time most network shows have had their premiere, the series has probably shot six or seven episodes and may be working on the script for the 9th or 10th episode. At that point, the studio and the network have a pretty good sense of what they’ve got creatively, and if that’s not working for them, a limp debut isn’t going to convince them to throw good money after bad. (Though streaming figures and the Live+3 and Live+7 viewing numbers can end up extending a show’s life just by virtue of the fact they take longer to compile.)read article
by Ken Pisani
by Aaron Walker Sr.