You’re absolutely right, Josh – television is a writers’ medium. And if you want your entertainment to be more than just entertaining – if you also want it to be intelligent, complex, uncompromising, risk-taking, all that, then TV’s a good place to go.
Part of the reason, I think, is that television has a commitment to producing great drama in a way that Hollywood has almost completely abandoned. (It also typically allows these shows to build an audience — something Hollywood doesn’t with its idiotic “opening weekend or nothing” mentality.)
In an effort to make as big a buck as possible, the major studios have diverted almost all of their attention and resources to making insanely large-budgeted blockbusters. The mid-range drama, once the bread and butter of Hollywood, is an endangered species, even more so now that studios are shuttering their specialty divisions, and huge chunks of the population – female viewers, African-American viewers, Latino viewers – have been marginalized as nothing more than niche markets. But hell, so long as those 14-year-old boys are satisfied…
Granted, indie films have been picking up the slack for decades, but it’s an insanely uphill battle, trying to find a home for all those films. These are pretty exciting times in terms of nontraditional platforms – local filmmaker David Modigliani’s Crawford, for example, just premiered online this week, and exploded its potential audience in the process. That said, I’m an old-fashioned gal who prefers to watch movies on the big screen. Am I happy to watch on my iPod an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on an airplane? Yep. Do I want to watch, say, the new film from Baz Luhrman – a guy who makes epic-sized movies – on such a tiny screen? Nope.
Back to TV: I agree with a lot of the examples you tossed out of exemplary television. Watching tonight’s debate, I was reminded of another.
This article appears in October 10 • 2008.
