Originally posted by pisher: Oh please, Stephen Hawkings is a total media-whore. It's not proof of anything that he agreed to host the thing.
The Anthology Show is just a dead genre, same as the TV Western. Serling saw it coming back in the 50's. Dramas with the same character or characters appearing every week, surrogate TV families, were becoming the rage. He hated them, saw them as limiting and sentimental--you can't do whatever you want in a story if you have to keep this or that character around in order for people to watch. He wanted TV to be a haven for tele-plays, in the most literal sense--plays written for television, like the work of Chayefsky, and his own "Patterns". He did The Twilight Zone not out of any deep love for science fiction/fantasy, but because it was a way to get controversial material past the network censors.
So he did a TV Western with Lloyd Bridges, and it was a flop. He went back to Anthology with Night Gallery, and it had some high points, but his heart wasn't in it anymore.
He would have viewed nearly all the present-day shows we consider "great television" as cloying compromises. He would have said we were losing interest in ideas and story, and just fixating on fantasy figures, in order to insulate ourselves from the unpleasant realities around us. And he'd be right. Up to a point.
And now it seems that that kind of TV drama itself is becoming a bit old-fashioned, and may be on the way out. And people are protesting yet again that this is the death of quality television.
It's the death of something, but nothing all that important, IMO. Anyway, TV drama will be around in one form or another for a long time to come. But probably not the form we're accustomed to now.
I'd just like to see some ballsy material back on the nets...there's so much empty-headed, youth oriented matierial on now...people seem afraid to press issues, for some reason. The nets, like the news media, are whipped seem afraid to make statements or propose ideas.
Hawkings is just part of the pretentious packaging, I'm sure...they're going for a feeling, hence the "Masters"; I don't care about that...I'd like to try to hear what they're trying to say...
Pisher, the serialized drama was dead too until 24 and LOST brought it back.
In fact, I think LOST succeeded because it brought back that genre in a great way. In a similar fashion, both anthology series and westerns could and should make a return. I think a family western in the mode of Little House on the Prairie or Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman would succeed, and it would be because it's filling an unmet desire for that type of show.
quote:
Originally posted by pisher: Oh please, Stephen Hawkings is a total media-whore. It's not proof of anything that he agreed to host the thing.
The Anthology Show is just a dead genre, same as the TV Western. Serling saw it coming back in the 50's. Dramas with the same character or characters appearing every week, surrogate TV families, were becoming the rage. He hated them, saw them as limiting and sentimental--you can't do whatever you want in a story if you have to keep this or that character around in order for people to watch. He wanted TV to be a haven for tele-plays, in the most literal sense--plays written for television, like the work of Chayefsky, and his own "Patterns". He did The Twilight Zone not out of any deep love for science fiction/fantasy, but because it was a way to get controversial material past the network censors.
So he did a TV Western with Lloyd Bridges, and it was a flop. He went back to Anthology with Night Gallery, and it had some high points, but his heart wasn't in it anymore.
He would have viewed nearly all the present-day shows we consider "great television" as cloying compromises. He would have said we were losing interest in ideas and story, and just fixating on fantasy figures, in order to insulate ourselves from the unpleasant realities around us. And he'd be right. Up to a point.
And now it seems that that kind of TV drama itself is becoming a bit old-fashioned, and may be on the way out. And people are protesting yet again that this is the death of quality television.
It's the death of something, but nothing all that important, IMO. Anyway, TV drama will be around in one form or another for a long time to come. But probably not the form we're accustomed to now.
Exactly - the most popular shows many times are because they are not like anything on TV at that time.. Refreshing and different. (Desperate Housewives, Survivor) Of course, the same goes for the least popular shows.... hence, networks settling for the familiar.
I'd just like to see some ballsy material back on the nets...there's so much empty-headed, youth oriented matierial on now...people seem afraid to press issues, for some reason. The nets, like the news media, are whipped seem afraid to make statements or propose ideas.
I think it's more that the people pitching the shows are too interested in money these days. They are, sorry. It's just so lucrative a field now. They talk a good game, but at the end of the day, they're slaves of the system, and only make the occasional sporadic doomed rebellion.
There's nobody approaching the level of Rod Serling today. David Chase comes closest, and he's on his way out.
