Entertainment Forum General Chat Thread • Page 1296

This is just arguing something for the sake of arguing. Arguing for the love of the game. Respect

 

I don’t think TV has surpassed movies, I just get/want different things out of each

 

TV shows are full of contradictory information about characters and, if the show goes on long enough, character development is often stalled or even reversed.

 

I think you guys are saying they can’t compare because there’s an inherent acknowledgement that a TV show is going to have lulls or be inconsistent and you just have to persist to get the big picture. I think that’s a flaw in the medium. I am rewatching Mad Men, and there are so many boring episodes and tonal shifts in the first two seasons while the creators find their footing. The amount of time I spend not enjoying the show is so much more than when I watch a good film

 

it is very clearly television. why would it have the music performances to end essentially every episode if it were shot to be a film.

the only recent example of tv that actually feels like it was intended to be a movie is the recent cuaron apple tv show

 

It definitely has chapters, but it is very clearly coming from a movie director.

 

the “this is an 8 hour movie” is an argument used by people like those posting in this thread right now to denigrate the medium. it’s tv, man. hate to break it to you.

 

nah dude. prison break is a perfect example of flawlessly executed character development

 

Tv Game shows and comedys are fine, but they don't redeem the stain the medium has done to our culture

 

a movie director who made multiple different tv series in his career including one show that’s more successful than half his movies

 

This is true. A psycho can go out with a minimal budget and make a film. The amount of checks and balances in TV with studio involvement really limits that. In more recent years the leash has been lengthened a bit.

 

plus, an 8 hour movie would suck. that's way too long.

 

thanks brad i agree

 

Mad Men definitely feels its length. How many times can the company be re-organized? How is Don going to come up with the perfect pitch? How long can Peggy be pulled between her desire for femininity and her desire to be a careerist? How many times can Don betray someone he loves? It doesn't add much.

 

An annoying trend on shows is the suggestion of a breakthrough moment for a character, only for things to be wrapped up and then turned back to normal. Girls was guilty of that a lot.

 

At the same time, though, look at the films of both Chase and Weiner. They benefit from the medium of TV because audience are more forgiving of their bad/boring shit when they hit moments of brilliance.

 

The wire is actually 5 separate movies

 

i’m not trying to argue tv is better. like i said, the highs of great movies are higher than great tv. i would say the recent move to everything being thrown on a streamer and super hero movies dominating the last 15 years really hurts the argument that the medium is that much different than tv though. i probably won’t watch any tv this year half as bad as the movies that get promoted on podcasts or hot ones every week

 

basically the highs of movies are higher, the lows are much lower

 

You're describing something remarkably close to a human being right now.

 

But we are talking about fiction and character arcs. In the Sopranos, Chris has to descend into drugs, and then the climactic intervention, but then they have to have him relapse in season five and then again near the end of the show. Carmela continually makes peace with Tony's lifestyle and then confronts him. They almost go to war with New York at the end of three different seasons until it finally happens in 7B.

Of course it is even more literal in sitcoms where you can't have too much change because you don't know in what order people are going to watch your show in syndication.

 

You can also feel the economics of a show a lot more than in a well-made film. You notice very early on that Mad Men really only takes place in about five rooms because it would be too hard to make everything outside look like the Sixties. Deadwood is supposed to be in this growing mining town but you only see any suggestion of the mines about three times.

 

I think a lot of you are missing the thread. It isn’t whether or not tv is worse than film, it’s that TV is one of the worst mediums of art. And I’d maybe put it last.

 

this is where I landed last time. There is a very large gap between 3 and 4 and again between 5 and 6. Someone could convince me that games could be above TV. I don’t even know if Podcasts should be ranked.

 

Overall, serialization of a story is almost always going to lead to a deterioration of quality.