The Trouble with Modern Television

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All right, prepare yourself for a whole lot of whinge, and potential spoilers. I’ll tell everybody right now, if you’re not caught up on the most recent seasons of Supernatural, Riverdale, or Grey’s Anatomy, there may be problems reading this post. Unless you don’t care about the spoilers for any of these shows. Or, er, others… Consider yourself well and truly forewarned…

So, not too long ago, I discussed how modern television programs are really letting me down. Maybe I’m feeling the effects of my age (being over 35). Maybe it’s because the TV I grew up on wasn’t yet riddled with plot device cliches, or character tropes we’d all seen a hundred times. The TV shows of the 1980s and 90s (and I was a kid then, folks, so I’m not that old) were, in terms of special effects, yes, rather lacking, compared to what we view today on our phones. However, most of the time, I didn’t care — because the TV shows I grew up with had plots that worked, characters that were endearing and easy to cheer for, writing that wasn’t chock full of overt political commentary, and stories that — if you were the creative sort yourself — made you want to write something that good.

The 90s was also the era in which we began to witness the major cultural problem of shows carrying on too long, just for the ratings/money, and the writers/directors/actors getting burned out, so the scripts turned to garbage, and the integrity of the whole program went downhill (at 50 miles an hour).

Unfortunately, it was also the era of current events issues beginning to enter the dialogue of sitcoms and dramas a little too much. While I’m not an expert on this particular medium of entertainment, as a writer, and a viewer, there’s plenty I observed, especially as an adult, and I shall be waxing lyrical about it here.

So, one of the concerns for parents when I was young was the idea that their kids would see, or hear, something on TV that, maturity-wise, they weren’t ready to. It was one of the main reasons programming over a PG-13 rating generally wasn’t broadcast until after 8 p.m., when really small people had gone to bed and wouldn’t be conscious for the possible swear words or brief shot of a woman in a bikini, or the scene where the cheating husband got murdered. Of course, this leads straight into my next point, that most of these things were edited, so that we’d only see the bikini for about 15 seconds, the murder would be intensely unrealistic, with some stunt guy just yelling, “Aaaahh!!” and falling down, and the worst anybody would say before 10 p.m. was, “Damn it, they got away!”

Now, before we get any further into this, I want to state, for the record, that I don’t approve of censorship. I don’t think simply banning an idea, or a style of filmmaking, or TV-show-making, is actually effective. (Generally banning something only makes people want to do it more, because apparently the human race is like that.) Are there things that I think are unnecessary in television programming? Absolutely. Do I think there are subjects/content that will appeal to a wide audience, but that should have their place and time (literally)? Yes.

So, here we go, onto one of my chief complaints: In most PG-13-rated shows post-2010, there seems to be an intense lack of decency.

I’ll spot Riverdale on the stand as my Exhibit A in this case. For those of you who don’t know, Riverdale started as a show based loosely on the characters/setting from the Archie comics from the 1960s and 70s. As someone who never read the comics (who never read comics at all, apart from Peanuts and Garfield), I had no idea who the characters were or what their premise was. I did a little research prior to the season 1 premiere, and found that it was basically a classic example of high school life in the 1950s, very apple-pie, white-picket-fence, totally unrealistic middle-class America of a bygone age. I couldn’t see how any of this would relate to modern viewers, so I started watching, out of pure curiosity.

And I have to say, season 1 of Riverdale is brilliant. It takes all those metaphors I just used, and turns them on their head. It adds diversity, it shakes up the established culture of a small town in the middle of nowhere, with murder, conspiracy, corruption, and tons of drama. It’s juicy, it’s exciting, it’s a guilty pleasure. And throughout, we’re reminded that the main characters are just teens, dealing with stuff they shouldn’t have to, and their innocence being shattered is palpable to the audience. The cautionary tales that arise from putting themselves in dangerous situations is important to include, and rings true. 

Then the season ends on a cliffhanger (grrrrrr, STOP doing that, producers!!), and when we get more than a few episodes into season 2, we see it’s all going to the dogs. Teenagers are running around, vigilantes trying to solve crimes, carrying guns and joining gangs. The adults are either horrifically corrupt, disgustingly clueless, or have no backbone to stand up to the dark forces taking over their town. There’s a completely unnecessary amount of violence, nudity, and sex (among the adolescents). The plot makes no sense after half a dozen episodes. Well before the end of season 2 arrived, I was barely keeping up with the new broadcasts, and I’d grown so dissatisfied, I highly doubted I’d care if season 3 was announced. Well, it was, and here’s the verdict — I won’t be watching it.

Next on the evidence stand I present (sob!) Supernatural. I LOVED Supernatural. The relationship between the brothers, Sam and Dean, was awesome — plenty of sibling rivalry, they played pranks on each other, argued over not listening to the same album in the car again; then they’d go out monster hunting and absolutely have each other’s backs, no matter what. The fact these guys saved so many people, risked their lives countless times, literally died and came back more than thrice — all in the name of continuing to fight the good fight, it was so heartrending. And the secondary characters were all so good, too — their complicated past with their dad, John Winchester, their foster father, Bobby, the tragic loss of their mother early on; perilous love interests that proved to be bad for them, dodgy alliances with Crowley and Rowena, the twists of the angels not always being the good guys — all of it was just… Well, I kept watching this show for years.

And because of the subject matter — fighting demons, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and mythical monsters that liked to kill humans — we all knew this would be a program that would require a strong stomach. So, really, nothing they threw at the audience — in terms of blood and gore, epic demon battles, exorcisms, all the religious questions that naturally come with this territory — bothered me. I was either expecting it (and so at times would just look away from the screen), or I appreciated the writers’ willingness to tackle such topics as angels and demons, the fall of Lucifer, the war in Heaven, the Mark of Cain, whether God actually hears our prayers, Purgatory, resurrection, and so much more. For a long time, this was the only show on mainstream TV that was discussing such things.

Then season 11 happened. And I basically stopped watching. Too much occurred in the plot that didn’t just pose interesting muses on theology — it took accepted doctrine (from both Christian and Jewish cultures) and threw it out the window. In a very non-subtle way. And then (from the few episodes I saw of season 12 and 13), the confrontational style only grew more intense. What Supernatural had going for it before — its lack of getting mired in the political soapboxes of the day — completely vanished by early 2017. And it made me sad.

How did a show that made me laugh out loud and cry like a baby — so often within the same episode — just disappear seemingly overnight? The actors are the same, the characters have the same names, but I swear, this is no longer the Supernatural I spent the past 5 years catching up on. Cue the tears of despair and frustration.

What drives earnest creative minds, who have survived the ravages of Hollywood’s limits and stringent censors, to walk away from something truly entertaining and beautiful that they fought so hard to write, act, direct, edit? Is it just the pressure of the industry, the fickleness of the public, the way money talks in this field and if you can’t get it, your production suffers? I think it’s a combination of all this, and something else, something new to our society.

While television has consistently been a platform for raising awareness of cultural issues that need to be addressed, never has the discussion been so one-sided as it is nowadays. Forcing actual comments in the media about gun control, the environment, or abortion into the dialogue of fictional characters is blatantly attempting to brainwash your audience. What the hell happened to having a character who found themselves in a difficult situation — such as an unexpected pregnancy — and having the episode be about the options available to them, and how their decision might affect the other characters? Not simply, “The network says we have to present this view, so we are.” That is not the mark of a society that values free speech.

So, I honestly think part of the reason more balanced shows seem to be slipping out of the current schedule is because some of the people who make such programs are feeling burned out, and tired of fighting with the present network administrations. I have no proof of this, it’s just a theory. But it makes sense.

Here we come to my next big point in this treatise: People in the industry — writers, directors, actors, crew — do appear to be developing burn-out. Partly, the lack of new ideas on even the cable networks indicates the folks who come up with original stuff can’t find such a notion using satellite GPS and the Hubble telescope. And this usually means they are stressed, worn out, or traveling through India. My guess is it’s the first and second.

So, here we come to my Exhibit C: Grey’s Anatomy.

I got into Grey’s Anatomy late — the end of season 12, to be precise. I was incredibly bored and tired during Muffin’s naptime, and I wanted to just get off my feet and ignore the chores for 2 hours. So I jumped on the streaming services, and found that people were flailing over the season finale of Grey’s, and I thought, “Hey, I’ve never seen this, why not?” A couple episodes into season 13, and I was hooked.

Then I began seeing various comments on social media, from long-time fans who were growing disillusioned with the show. I did a little research on the official Wiki site, and realized just how much I’d missed. So, about a month ago, I went to the library and checked out the DVDs of season 1-5.

And I can now concretely say, OH. MY. GOSH. The storylines were so much better in the early years, the writing and editing so powerful, the characters so alive and fully fleshed-out. I shipped folks, I gasped in shock, I burst out laughing, I wept. While there were some things I didn’t agree with (in terms of my own spiritual and social convictions), I honestly felt free to disagree with it, and just enjoy the rest of the show. Not that I was being coerced into seeing the issue from exactly the same point of view as perhaps the director, the writer, or the network.

However, in current broadcasting, now we are on to the end of season 14. And the bubble has burst.

Siiigghhh.

The new TV season begins this fall, and here’s what I will be doing while it is on: Not watching it. I’ll be reading, or watching PBS (their nature and history programs are still pretty, remarkably unbiased), or surfing the internet. I’ll happily re-watch DVDs of old X-Files series, and movies I’ve seen a dozen times so I know I’ll enjoy it. I truly don’t feel I’ll miss out on anything.

Doctor Who lost me when they broke all the rules of time travel with the 11th Doctor. Making the 12th Doctor a nasty, angry “I’m with her” social commentary trope just made me mad. Now that it’s been set in stone the 13th Doctor will be a woman — playing straight into the hands of several current political agendas — I’m not even going to bother. Just to clarify — I have nothing against this actress, and I genuinely wish her the best, and hope she gets fantastic companions and scripts. But I am SO. TIRED. of having the news headlines shoehorned into what’s supposed to be entertainment.

When I watch TV or a film, I do it to escape. Yes, there are extremely important unpleasant stories that need to be told. But why do they have to hit you over the head with it? Why can’t we have nice metaphors and allegories, like in the original Star Trek, or Lord of the Rings?

I gave up on most dramas ages ago. I don’t even care for many historical fiction shows anymore. Same for a lot of sci-fi, even fantasy. And the last time I watched a sitcom — apart from 3 months ago, because there was one in particular I was curious about — was 7 or 8 years back.

Seriously, I. AM. DONE.

Thank you so much for making it to the end of this quite long post! Any thoughts to add in the comments?