TV08: EVERYTHING ELSE
Well, if the network executives hadn't been so ricockulously stupid as to not return series to the air directly after the writer's strike, in effect encouraging viewers to find something better to do that watch TV, there'd have been more stuff to choose from for the TV08 series. Still, there was some stuff I didn't get around to for one reson or another. Some of which follows.
30 Rock. Despite my love of the Fey, I elected not to do sitcoms. I don't write them, I don't look at them with much of a critical eye, I just hate most of them and love a few of them. Besides, I couldn't pick out just one. I thought about doing one on "MILF Island," but I decided to just let it go.
I thought about doing one for the first episode of Heroes this season. I actually enjoyed that first one when I saw the preview at SDCC. I thought it was well-placed, answered questions left from season two well while posing new and potentially interesting questions for the season two come. But that might send the wrong message. That Heroes is currently watchable. From 3x02 on, was just...ugh...in fact, I've taken the rare step of stopping watching it all together. Conscious decision. I'll still get the DVD's though. I'm a little obsessive about completeness in my massive collection, and academically I view it as an education in what not to do.
I just never got around to writing it up, but I was going to do a post for Battlestar Galactica: "Sine Qua Non." I was going to go on at length about the dead cat. Perhaps better left unwritten, but that was my favorite Galactica of the half-season.
The thing I debated most about was doing a post about Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. Time Magazine put it on their list, but I have some hesitation in calling this TV. It made me realize too late that I should have broadened the scope of my year end list and included all entertainment media. I could have included Buffy comics, The Dark Knight, maybe the Ambush Bug miniseries, I don't what else. It's not TV. It's a web series or a web event. It has different rules, it functions entirely differently and, in fact, the DVD calls it a film. It really is, it's a short film that got split up over three initial viewings.
And notable, it defies even like, the prime web series rule...well, rules of thumb. It goes well beyond the three-to-five minutes that seems to be the max attention span of people at computers. Plus, you know, it's Whedon. It wasn't cheap, it was even shot partially on a studio lot. It had every possible advantage. Certainly, it will and already has inspired no-budget filmmakers, which the web is really kinda of for in a way, and it served to send a message to the media companies that it can be done without them, but I don't see this as a real test.
What might be a better test is something like Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death, because Ed's not quite the name Whedon is. Unless you're into comics, you probably don't know him. He's got a crime series coming up with ten minute installments, so longer...meatier...but less star power (though Lucy Lawless is in it, but not featured as the star). The problem though, is it's a corporate gig. It's part of Sony's crackle.com.
No, the best test is to see what happens when a good, connected writer with some money or access to it does something on their own like Whedon, but without the rabid fanbase or the cachet his name carries. What if, for example, Darin Morgan did something like this. He's fucking awesome, but...Darin who? Only hardcore TV geeks know his name, but he won an Emmy for an X-Files episode. What about some writer outside of sci-fi (mostly) tried to do something like this. Like, maybe...Kevin Falls or Tom Fontana or Kurt Sutter did this. Can it get the internet's attention on just idea alone. Yeah, I guess it depends on the idea, but...I want to see more done outside of the corporations.
I would like to note though, that I inaugurated by new flat panel TV with the Dr. Horrible DVD.
30 Rock. Despite my love of the Fey, I elected not to do sitcoms. I don't write them, I don't look at them with much of a critical eye, I just hate most of them and love a few of them. Besides, I couldn't pick out just one. I thought about doing one on "MILF Island," but I decided to just let it go.
I thought about doing one for the first episode of Heroes this season. I actually enjoyed that first one when I saw the preview at SDCC. I thought it was well-placed, answered questions left from season two well while posing new and potentially interesting questions for the season two come. But that might send the wrong message. That Heroes is currently watchable. From 3x02 on, was just...ugh...in fact, I've taken the rare step of stopping watching it all together. Conscious decision. I'll still get the DVD's though. I'm a little obsessive about completeness in my massive collection, and academically I view it as an education in what not to do.
I just never got around to writing it up, but I was going to do a post for Battlestar Galactica: "Sine Qua Non." I was going to go on at length about the dead cat. Perhaps better left unwritten, but that was my favorite Galactica of the half-season.
The thing I debated most about was doing a post about Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. Time Magazine put it on their list, but I have some hesitation in calling this TV. It made me realize too late that I should have broadened the scope of my year end list and included all entertainment media. I could have included Buffy comics, The Dark Knight, maybe the Ambush Bug miniseries, I don't what else. It's not TV. It's a web series or a web event. It has different rules, it functions entirely differently and, in fact, the DVD calls it a film. It really is, it's a short film that got split up over three initial viewings.
And notable, it defies even like, the prime web series rule...well, rules of thumb. It goes well beyond the three-to-five minutes that seems to be the max attention span of people at computers. Plus, you know, it's Whedon. It wasn't cheap, it was even shot partially on a studio lot. It had every possible advantage. Certainly, it will and already has inspired no-budget filmmakers, which the web is really kinda of for in a way, and it served to send a message to the media companies that it can be done without them, but I don't see this as a real test.
What might be a better test is something like Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death, because Ed's not quite the name Whedon is. Unless you're into comics, you probably don't know him. He's got a crime series coming up with ten minute installments, so longer...meatier...but less star power (though Lucy Lawless is in it, but not featured as the star). The problem though, is it's a corporate gig. It's part of Sony's crackle.com.
No, the best test is to see what happens when a good, connected writer with some money or access to it does something on their own like Whedon, but without the rabid fanbase or the cachet his name carries. What if, for example, Darin Morgan did something like this. He's fucking awesome, but...Darin who? Only hardcore TV geeks know his name, but he won an Emmy for an X-Files episode. What about some writer outside of sci-fi (mostly) tried to do something like this. Like, maybe...Kevin Falls or Tom Fontana or Kurt Sutter did this. Can it get the internet's attention on just idea alone. Yeah, I guess it depends on the idea, but...I want to see more done outside of the corporations.
I would like to note though, that I inaugurated by new flat panel TV with the Dr. Horrible DVD.