More Complaints About Progress

We are in a time of much change, both big and small. Freedom is on the march in some sectors, and on the retreat in others. There are great innovations, and great setbacks. In all of this there is fear and confusion that we must get over. One of the more interesting areas of puzzlement for me is in television, and yet on the other hand it isn't television at all. It was, I suppose, only a matter of time before the internet's ability to handle video led to video made just for the internet, but what are we to call it?

I was reading an article about Michael Connelly's "Harry Bosch" character. I was mildly curious because I had started one of those novels after picking it up at a bus station. I didn't finish it, but I started it: "Trunk Music", I think it was called. In any event, a show about the character is in the offing. I call it just a show because it's going to be run by Amazon.com. It's a show that will be streamed on the internet. My mind cannot accept it as a TV show, because it won't air on television.

My point of view is yet again a marginalized one. The article's headline says explicitly that the character is making the leap to television, when it's doing nothing of the kind. A friend has said that you could transmit it to your television in the same way that a cable box sends the cable company's offerings to your TV. It's not the same at all. Certainly I could put my own damn home movies on my TV, but they're not TV shows just because they appear there. They're TV shows because they were made to air on a TV channel.

What are you to call episodic programming that is not for the television if not a TV show? I guess you can just call it a show, but that's inadequately descriptive. "Webseries" captures basically what it is, but gives the wrong connotation. A webseries to me is something made by the unestablished in hopes of making names for themselves and getting a chance to step up to the big leagues. What do you call something made with a lavish budget and stars like Kevin Spacey? I really don't know. This is a puzzler.