

Soul-Searching in TV Land Over the Challenges of a New Golden Age - pmcpinto
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/business/fx-chief-ignites-soul-searching-about-the-boom-in-scripted-tv.html

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soylentcola
_“I hear it all the time,” said Michael Lombardo, the president of programming
at HBO. “People going, ‘I can’t commit to another show, and I don’t have the
time to emotionally commit to another show.’ I hear that, and I’m aware of it,
and I get it.”_

That doesn't really happen to me at least. I've come to love serial television
(mostly drama/scifi/adventure/etc) and I'm often hunting for something to
watch because I've watched everything of interest. I think this is mainly
because a) There are a lot of shows that hold no interest for me and b) the
stuff I do like will be binge-watched over the course of a week or a month.

I treat these serial, scripted programs like novels almost. When I find a
novel that looks interesting, I read several chapters most nights before bed
until I finish it and then look for a new novel. With TV, I can skim HBO Go,
Netflix, etc. for something that looks good and then spend the next week or
more just watching an episode or three every night when I'm at home and not
working on something.

There really does come a point where you exhaust just about everything you
might want to watch and it sucks because I've gotten spoiled. It's as if I
finished all the entertaining novels out there have to wait a year for one or
two more to trickle out one chapter at a time.

~~~
fluidcruft
My anecdote: I've never been a cable subscriber and have been OTA only. There
was a season 2008 or 2009-ish, I can't remember exactly, where literally every
single scripted show that seemed promising was canceled by the networks after
one or at most three episodes. Since then I stopped caring about live TV at
all.

~~~
DanBC
Wasn't 2007/2008 the year of the writer's strike? That's obviously going to
cause a bit of disruption.

I agree that US tv doesn't seem to give shows a chance to get established.
There are some potentially great shows that got cancelled too soon. (Space
above and beyond; jericho; firefly; etc etc).

~~~
fluidcruft
I don't remember any shows being canceled while on air due to the writers
strike. IIRC the programmers seemed to understand the challenge and were more
lenient that year anyway.

A huge draw for me with Netflix's "dump the whole season" approach is that the
entire work unit has proof of life before I commit any time to watching it.

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cryoshon
Uh... I don't know how else to say this:

There is no real problem here; having "too many" "good" TV shows to watch is
not a problem by any stretch of anyone's imagination. This article, and
lamentably, this comment pertaining to that article, are a complete and utter
waste of time and human attention. If you have read the comments section
first, please close the comments as well as the article immediately and do not
read any further.

~~~
PaulHoule
I disagree.

I have often railed against television, but if you look at a good TV series
people have made a huge amount of effort in terms of writing, acting,
directing, sets, etc. There is a lot of art to appreciate.

The "too many" problem is not so much a problem of the consumer as it is of
the producer, it's just what a bubble looks like on the ground.

~~~
VLM
> it's just what a bubble looks like on the ground

This is why a "TV" story holds incredible value for the HN community;
somewhere out there some TV fans are having a story about the tech bubble with
the same observations and comments. This is extremely instructive for self
reflection, observation from inside THIS bubble. This is how outsiders observe
it, talk about it, rationalize about it, report on it. This individual story
is about TV; copy and paste some words, and its about the SV tech scene. Even
if my analogy isn't perfect, which it probably isn't, this DOES demonstrate
the processes, perhaps for later analysis in the future where the analogy may
fit better.

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brazzy
Personally, I'm wary of new shows, however highly lauded they are, because
I've seen great potential squandered too often between the conflicting demands
of having season finales be both a proper ending (because the show might not
_have_ another season) and leave room for the next season to meaningfully
continue.

~~~
PaulHoule
This is particularly obvious in anime, where certain quality standards that
are enforced in the west are often broken in the name of telling stories that
push the boundary of there system.

For instance, "Futari Wa Precure" was the begining of something almost as big
as Sailor Moon and around episode 24 of the first season they put extra
resources to make an incredible finale; they were not sure if they were going
to make more episodes for the season.

All of a sudden they need to produce a new story arc and for a few episodes
they out of control in terms of writing and direction and the story frankly
doesn't make much sense for a few episodes until they are able to get on top.

~~~
gizmo686
Another difference I have noticed with anime is that it is much more common
for second seasons to be branded as a new show, instead of as a second season
to the old show. I have not seen this blead into the actual content itself
(except perhaps that the storylines are potentially more independent than they
could be); and this could be an artifact of the western distribution network
more than the production itself.

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jobu
First world problems...

Seriously though, how much of this is a result of new players in the content
industry (Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu), and how much is simply a pendulum
swing back from all the unscripted "reality tv" crap that the major networks
pumped out in the 2000's?

~~~
rhino369
It's sort of all of the above. Netflix et al increases the availability of
backlog TV shows. Networks abandoned quality tv because lowest common
denominator won the highest ratings.

Then cable saw the benefits of high quality niche programming. HBO started it.
But FX and AMC showed you could make real money on regular cable with prestige
shows like mad men, breaking bad and the shield.

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NoMoreNicksLeft
Boo hoo.

Why do I feel like they're gas station owners crying about how they can't
charge $50/gallon for gasoline now that the hurricane won't make landfall?

