Television as a medium.

is learning to mechanize the production of decent stuff.

twenty years ago a show produced in a mechanical fashion was utter shit "OMG, THE NEIGHBOR KID BUILT A NUKE!, BUT DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE THE COOL KIDS STOP PICKING ON HIM, and is never sure if he caused horrible catastrophes in the main families home with his clumsiness"


Compare that to now.

Urkel v. weeds.

weeds still relies on old tricks, like, there is some cheech and chong shit in there.

but they at least put more effort into it (like they actually use growing equipment, they hired someone who knows about growing and cloning, did you see the growcubes? Maybe the person they hired doesn't know much, but it's better than passing off complete shit as science)

do you think it is an improvement?

do you think shows like the soprano's and weeds, and big love are superior to their vintage counterparts in writing? or are they just taking advantage of the open-ness of cable?

 

Weeds is a pretty dumb and rather shitty show.

Other than that... it's hard to compare HBO shows and such to the generic shows of the past. The shows are more audience specific and target a more "educated" (for a lack of a better word) peoples.

 

i think it depends on the show how much difference it really makes. sometimes nonsense is more entertaining. sometimes realism is. and as far as i'm concerned, entertainment is the only real purpose of tv.

it's not like i would watch weeds to learn how to grow weed, but it may be more interesting due to the realism than it would be otherwise. i've never seen the show so it's hard to say for sure.

 

The TV audience isn’t getting smarter but we're getting more sophisticated


Hotwater

 

Jimmy Neutron is the only how that has efficiently used science.

 

The medium is the message. Doesn't really matter what it shows.

 

I appreciate the effort some crews make to improve the quality of shows.

step by step was the 90's version of the brady bunch.

it was still shit. I'd like to believe though, with the internet forcing more competition into the arena. and forcing the consumer to make different choices about their free time, it's improving quality

(of everything except SNL which has been on a decline for many years)

 

MASH and Seinfeld and the Sopranos need to come back and I will agree with you Dave.

 

seinfeld was a poor vehicle for what they accomplished, and MASH did try to come back, it was horrible.

I say the seinfeld thing because, ooh, WOW, they talked about taboo subjects!

but, beyond the level of honesty that hadn't existed in sitcoms before, it wasn't much.

the vehicle forced too much pretense into the shell of mediocre comedy.

 

Overall the quality of television sucks but with over 200 stations you can always find something interesting from The Iron Chef on the Food network, to Life After People on the History Channel, to Dhani tackles the Globe on the Travel Channel (or the sexy version Bridget’s sexiest beaches) :cheers2:


Bridget (the travel Channel)

Hotwater

 

Love Dhani Tackles the Globe, too bad they don't show reruns.

 

"seinfeld was a poor vehicle for what they accomplished, and MASH did try to come back, it was horrible."

Yeah your right about MASH


"I say the seinfeld thing because, ooh, WOW, they talked about taboo subjects!

but, beyond the level of honesty that hadn't existed in sitcoms before, it wasn't much.

the vehicle forced too much pretense into the shell of mediocre comedy"

I don't care about how honest it was I like it because of how unusual it was.

 

Great show :cheers2:

But Bridget still rules especially when she invites some of her hot busty friends to tag along


Hotwater

 

Unusual doesn't mean good.

 

I will say it was unusually good.

 

Compared to TGIF

not compared to anything decent.

 

omg TGIF. Boy Meets World and Sabrina!

 

It's really a matter of opinion.

What shows do you like though?

 

Firefly was good, Season two and three of babylon five were good (season four was too compressed, season one was too much meet an greet)

Dollhouse is good, weeds was REALLY good for the first two seasons, I'm still enjoying it, but, it's not as good, big love is good, but too much machination.

Still haven't seen sopranos, been meaning to try it.

but honestly, I don't watch much t.v.

this is mostly meant to evoke conversation.

 

Give Sopranos a try it's the best show in the last ten years IMO.