Now that horribly laugh tracked sitcoms and over-written medical dramas don’t completely over populate the digital cable bandwidth, I’m finding more content that is actually entertaining. The writing is good, the camera work is enjoyable, good editing, worthwhile effects, and, most importantly, the availability of more programs shot in widescreen. If there is anything that has made television better, it’s the forcing of HDTV[wiki] upon the networks. It’s made the suits actually produce something worth watching, and they gotta pay for that conversion somehow.
I guess I haven’t been paying much attention to the television landscape in the past few years because when the hell did they start doing “fall finales” and “fall breaks”? Seasons for some programs are now broke up between fall and winter? When did they start doing that? More importantly, why?
This is winter time. This is the time in which we need something to entertain us while we stay warm inside or, as it goes in Vancouver, stay out of the rain. In the summer, I could care very little about anything else other than being able to get to the beach on the weekend and enjoying dinner on a patio somewhere at night. If Hollywood thinks that I’m going to be sitting on the edge of my chair while I wait for the next episode of Hereos[wiki] or Jericho[wiki] to premiere in January… then… they’re probably right. That doesn’t mean I like it.
I had a conversation with a friend not too long ago, and he kept saying that he doesn’t understand how anyone can wait for a new episode of any television show to come out from week to week. I initially disagreed with him, but he kinda has a point now. Marathon nights of watching a single season of some show on DVD sounds appealing opposed to this “clever” marketing technique that networks are pulling now. Oh how I loathe them.