The changing face of entertainment
I'm late to the party, and if you are, too, go read Sherri's post from yesterday. I just did, and it prompted me to write this rambling post.
Because I think the whole famewhore thing is just gross. Which may be a bit hypocritical, b/c I do watch the Real Housewives (but in my defense, we started b/c we used almost bought a house a stone's throw from the Orange County neighborhood, and we used to live in LA, and I've always wanted to live in NYC. The real estate came first, LOL!).
So what's the point of this post? Honestly, I'm not sure. But I have a friend who's shopping a television show right now, and the last time I talked to him, he said they were waiting to hear back from Netflix. Netflix? I didn't even know Netflix was in the production game, but apparently they are.
The thing I find so interesting is that right now, there are a lot of cool things happening on television (assuming you ignore all the reality crap). For a while there, nothing on TV was genre. Now we've got zombies and vampires and all sorts of cool stuff. Nobody would do a period piece. Then Mad Men came along with its exceptionally written scripts and no-holds-barred take on the 60s (the trash episode anyone? drinking and smoking while preggers?). Films are more dialed-in, which makes sense I suppose because of the relatively higher cost (though some low-budget films certainly break out). But I think it's fair to say there's a new Renaissance in television and part of that is because of these new, alternative producers like Netflix or even Microsoft (The Guild, anyone?).
I don't watch a lot of television, but I've been impressed with my selections. Vampire Diaries (though thank goodness last season set this season up for a shake-up. I was getting tired of Stephan–and don't tell me what's happening; we haven't started this season yet!), Mad Men, and Breaking Bad are hold overs for previous seasons. This season we've started The Ringer and what's interesting there is the cool set-up, gobzillion story questions, and above-average actors (Love SMG and Horatio Hornblower dude) make it work even though the it's very obviously shot on a budget.
So, listen producer types: instead of doing the 17yo 'ho and her perv husband as reality TV, how about doing something well-written that has a story? It's definitely doable and lacks the icky trainwreck factor!
Do you watch anything that would be considered alternative TV? Any web-based shows? Personally, I love The Guild, but I'm not probably two seasons behind. Need to find a free hour and catch up!
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