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.

Traveling Man

I love "Columbo". On a whim, I checked the discs containing the first "season" out of the library, and I watched them and the rest with my roommate. We noticed a lot of peculiarities in the show, one of which concerns the titular detective's relaxed attitude about jurisdiction. He was always getting into cases that took him well outside of Los Angeles, which is where he lived and worked. It was amusing, but infuriating. It was never even brought up as a problem. He just went places.

If I got into every time he went elsewhere in California, this would go on for some time. If I confine myself only to the most egregious cases, it's long enough. I started thinking about the whole thing when an episode in which Colombo visits England. It seems to me he may have done that a couple times. He's purportedly a guest of Scotland Yard, getting to see how they handle the crime-fighting business, which is conceivable, but unlikely just the same to me.

Posing Robots

I have watched a few episodes of "Dragnet", and written about it here at least once. It's a peculiar show. It's probably fair to say that it's a pretty pure expression of Jack Webb's vision. It's a very establishment-minded show. The characters are all super-square cops, criminals who are almost as square, or cartoonish hippies. There's little action to the show, and the so-called crackling dialogue is just people talking fast.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the show is the time allotted to showing the human side of the officers. That's because they don't really have a human side. Imagine if someone tried to prove they were human by cutting open their arm, only to reveal motor oil and whirring gears. It's funny that they would be so confident that you'd be impressed by the depth of their humanity considering what they knew would be revealed. Then again, maybe that person wouldn't have known.

A Classic Episode

While trying to write yesterday, I turned on the TV and watched most of an episode of "Dragnet". It's a terrible show (although I find enough enjoyment in watching that I can't claim it's all bad) and I have a hard time believing it held up in the short term any better than it does in the long term. You have a couple of stone-faced detectives slinging emotionless dialogue at rapid fire pace, and invariably over some crime so minor as to scarcely bear a mention in passing.

They are always working out of a different department, making one wonder if that is how little valued they are. You would think that if they were very good they'd be in homicide, but there they are investigating people posing as officers, or busting puppy-snatching rings. Typically the despicable culprit looks every bit as square and establishment-minded as the cops themselves, except when the show is making a point about how wrongheaded hippies are. That's when you see some real cartoon characters.

Flash From The '80s

Over the last couple days I have been watching some of David Letterman's iteration of "Late Night". Naturally it is not available in its entirety, there being far too many episodes, but there are some bits and pieces that can be found on one video website or another. Individual interviews are there, such as ones with Harvey Pekar and Sandra Bernhardt, and there are some whole episodes out there as well, such as the two I watched yesterday whose guests included Dr. Ruth and Ron Silver.

It's a hell of a thing to think of what Letterman was doing at the time. It's true enough, I suppose, that he was building on what Steve Allen had done before him, but Letterman's brand of talk show (as it was then) feels revolutionary and subversive even today, and perhaps especially today. He was doing things that felt daring not because (or not solely because) they ran the risk of crossing a line, but because it felt crazy to devote real money, time and energy on things so silly or, at times, insubstantial.

Shows Of Youth

When I was young, one of the things that was very popular was ABC's Friday night "TGIF" lineup. These days, I don't think any network bothers to program Friday night with anything original. Even then I imagine that Friday night was for kids specifically for the reason that it was fertile ground for anything more. Anyway, I occasionally watched those shows, but I was not disciplined enough to watch anything regularly.

A friend had a party whose central purpose was to watch a the TGIF shows from a particular week October, 1993. I would have been ten years old, and the odds are sharply against my having been watching then. If I was, I don't remember seeing these shows. I frankly did not find that they held up, but then I don't know that I really enjoyed them in the first place. I guess I liked them better then, if only because I couldn't see how dumb they were.

Something New

I'm terribly excited about a new purchase I've made. It was one of those things that fell into my lap. A friend let me know that he was looking to sell his television, which was lovely, since I was in the market for one. This would be a flatscreen high-definition set. It's 46 inches, and awfully nice. My friend gave me a good deal, so I'm not out very much money at all. Naturally I felt compelled to share the good news with you, and in a very lengthy fashion.

This opens up a lot of possibilities. I had previously been denied the wonders of high definition viewing, and now I have it. I can watch Blu-Ray discs, which is awfully nice. I can also enjoy the high definition channels that come through on free television, which is good too. I should say also that I would be playing those Blu-Rays off my laptop, which I can connect to the TV via an HDMI cable. That means I can stream anything else I like from that computer as well.

Whose Time Has Come

I had an idea the other night, and thank God I was able to lay my hands on a legal pad and a pencil to get it down, or else it might have been lost forever. I doubt it would have been, because it's a good enough idea that either I would have had it again, or someone else would have. The greatest ideas gestate in the minds of several. This one was recorded in just five words: "Dead man's switch for television".

Now, your first thought may be that this already exists. It's true enough that televisions have been equipped for years with a timer one can set so that the TV will shut off as you sleep instead of running all night long. That's a perfectly good thing that they can do, and I have relied on it many times. It's the best that we have so far along the lines of eliminating waste in one's electronics, but we can most certainly do better.

It Was Fine

As I said I would, I watched the Academy Awards. It is, I suppose, a worthwhile way of spending time. I think that next year I may want to watch alone with all my electronic devices off. This is not anything to do with spoilers, because I did watch the show as it aired. There are just times that I realize how very much I differ with the world, or at least with those I am around. It's a frustrating experience, to say the least.

I did watch the show with friends, and I did say that's the only way I would do it, but I think I might have been mistaken. There were some happy times, but I found myself getting mad about for a wide range of progressively less rational reasons. There's no use getting into that, I suppose. For my part, I enjoyed the show. I did not have a lot of expectations about the quality of presentation or the people and films who ought to be receiving the awards.

I'll Watch

Today is the big Academy Awards presentation, and I must confess mixed feelings about it. I don't feel compelled to watch the broadcast, but inevitably there are parties and less elaborate gatherings to watch, and I do have a policy of not refusing human companionship. If the awarding of trophies to a lot of movies and people, some of whom deserve it and some of whom don't, is the reason why people get together, than who am I to quibble over it?

I would have to check to be sure, but I think I have seen few if any of the films under consideration, so I will be hard-pressed to feel any real stake in any of the awards. I will have no more than a gut feeling about what deserves to win. I will be driven mainly by existing affection for various directors and actors, possibly leading me to wish for unjust results. As I have no regard for the methods by which the awards are actually distributed, I am not too sorry about my own methods for selecting personal favorites.

And As

There's something that you see in the opening credits of television shows, or at least it used to be something you saw. I never could understand it really, and still don't entirely. You would be watching a show, and they would list the actors in the order of their prominence. The last name is what would be peculiar. Someone who was not a big name would often be listed last with both their name and that of their character. I never understood that.

I guess that it must be some kind of standard contractual thing. It occurs to me that it was typically an actor who had been around a while. It must be that it's some kind of perk that costs nothing to provide but which means a lot to the performers. I suppose that they must not be able to extend it to everyone, but I don't know why that is either. Maybe the layout of the credits suffers, but as it is the other actors must get jealous or something.

Go Figure

There is a cable channel called BBC America. It's available in most areas, and it offers us here in the US what I gather must be the best (or maybe only the most relatable) programming produced by the BBC in Great Britain. They have other channels there, of course, but those channels have evidently been less successful at extending the reach of their brand, outside of the occasional cross-Atlantic foray. Perhaps that is the result of competing with robust publicly-funded television.

It has long interested me to observe that no matter what clearly-defined identity a cable outlet manages to carve out for itself, there is no niche so fertile as to keep that outlet from eventually abandoning it quite unceremoniously in hopes of grabbing something more. I hate that, but it's there. The Scifi Channel becomes "Syfy", which apparently has the virtue of allowing a broader ranger of programming (as it's not a word or recognized slang). The Cartoon Network increasingly runs life-action programming, and there's so much more.

Show And Tell Off

The other day, I was watching "Dog The Bounty Hunter". I found it to be the best out of a handful of poor options. It's a terrible show, but I was receptive out of a desire to have something on while I was eating. The show made me think of something that I have noticed in other shows. You'll have these shows that are supposed to be real, documentary-style programs, and they'll be about something like a pawn show or a mechanic's shop. They're anything but real.

They tend to be predicated on conflict and drama, typically of a familial nature. You find yourself wondering how they could ever make a dollar, squabbling more than they work. "American Chopper" was like this. You only ever saw a lot of sniping and backbiting, from which they would occasionally take breaks to make motorcycles. I would have liked the balance to be tipped in the other direction, but I suspect I was in the minority. All of the contrived drama proves to be rather lucrative.

Commercial Television

I like watching television. I don't seem to watch as much as I maybe once did, but then I think I watch a generally higher caliber of shows these days. Even given the fewer hours spent watching shows, I think it's interesting what you can learn. I don't mean the shows themselves so much, although there is a lot in that also. Sometimes we see our perception of the world we live in, and sometimes it's the world we wish for. Sometimes it's what we fear will come.

As I said though, that's not what interests me so much. It's really the commercials. When you pay attention, you realize how much they reveal about you. They don't necessarily sell products for you personally, but they do always sell products for the better part of the audience of the show in question. It adds up when you think about it, but you don't really think about it a lot, I think. That's probably for the best.

Television Free Los Angeles

I recently acquired a second television at a modest cost, seeing it as being a worthwhile investment in good relations among my roommates and I. There is that one who is good enough to go to bed at a reasonable hour, unlike us other two, who can now watch movies in my bedroom rather than in the living room at a reduced volume. So far it has been very effective in achieving the goal of keeping the peace, though it has not been long.

An interesting side benefit has been what TV shows I have watched on it. As I may have said in the past, I have a converter box that lets me watch the free channels, and I have installed it on this second TV. I grumble and swear trying to adjust the antenna to bring in the signal, but when I do there are some remarkable shows on. I find myself getting hooked sufficiently that I am falling behind on contemporary shows.

Caught Not Caught Up

There is some great television on these days. Mindless trash may be more numerous and more popular, but for the more discriminating viewer, there is more than enough programming of a very high quality. In fact, there really is too much. Only someone who can dedicate hours a day can watch it all. A lot of people do watch tv for hours a day, but they watch the trash. I watch the good stuff, and while I ordinarily have plenty of time for it, I recently was uncharacteristically busy.

As a consequence, I have fallen woefully behind. The recent holiday weekend gave me time to catch up on just one show. I might have watched a little of everything, but I felt there would be a great psychological boost from knocking one show off the agenda. That show, of course, has now aired a new episode, again putting me a bit behind on it. At least I'm not four episodes back on it anymore. That was embarrassing.

Ostracized!

I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of very good friends. They are kind, generous, smart and fun. By association with them I have been exposed to wonderful things, and connected with fantastic opportunities. For someone who grew up having at no time more than two or three friends (who were great), it's really something. They're all just wonderful for me, and I want badly to reciprocate whenever I can.

Sometimes they can be a malevolent force, though. Maybe it's tough love or something, but tough love hurts. The thing is that I have to be able to keep up with my friends. In eating, drinking and the few other matters that are very serious, I can't get far behind, or I'll be left behind. It moves me to do more and to do better, which is good. Sometimes I question the nature of the ties that bind, and what happens if I don't keep up.

Cleaned Out

In life things are always in transition. There never is that status quo, because things are always moving and changing, so when something comes into being we ought not to be surprised, nor should we when something else fades away, no matter how big it is or seems to be. I'm presently thinking of soap operas. This is something I like the idea of much more so than I like the thing itself. I admire the formidable task of generating five hours of scripted programming a week. I have an affection for them and all their trappings, silly though they can be.

Regrettably, soap operas are heading out. I have recently read of two long-running series being cancelled, and on the same day. That's got to be something of a death knell coming as it does on the heels of several others getting axed in recent months, some of them being older than television itself. It's a real sea change, no doubt about it. Within a few years, there will be none left at all, no matter what they say about those shows that remain the strongest.

Fall Behind And Get Left Behind

One major failing of mine has got to be keeping up on ongoing contemporary pop culture concerns. I happen to be a big fan of old stuff and have a problem with keeping to routines, and those two things make it very hard for me to stay up to date on such things as tv shows. There was a time when this mattered very little. Nearly every tv show consisted of one stand-alone episode after another, with everything going back to normal by the start of the next one, no matter what had happened. Nothing permanent transpired unless an actor left the show or the producers got scared they might be canceled. It didn't matter if you missed episodes or watched them out of order.

With serialized tv shows becoming the rule, it matters now, and I'm constantly in a precarious position. For a time I had a dvr, and while I didn't have any of the premium channels, I was able to stay on top of what mattered. Either I was getting together with friends to watch the big premium shows or I was watching them on dvd before too much time had passed. The rest I was all over just as soon as they had recorded. I suffered some spoilers from people I didn't know, but did not have any real trouble with my friends.

Free TV

I recently wrote about subsisting on various free forms of media around the house, one of which was what at least used to be called over-the-air television. When I had cable, I could watch just about anything my heart desired. I say just about because I did not even then have premium cable. This though was mitigated by the availability of all that programming through Netflix, which I have retained. That same thing promises to ease the pangs I will continue to feel for that old cornucopia of channels. Even so, the frustrations of free television are leavened by intrigue. It reminds me a bit of the movie Videodrome, or more likely just the way cable used to be.

Strangely, it has been my experience that the major broadcast networks are the most elusive. Bringing in NBC is perhaps the easiest. Past experiences had Fox and ABC being somewhat more difficult, with CBS being the toughest hands down. Attempting to tune in that station to watch a college football game meant getting up early and spending something like ninety minutes sweating and wrestling with the cheap antenna. The benefit, I suppose, is that at that point I felt a special kinship with the players who were exerting themselves so much for my entertainment. Really, it's easier to experience a game by listening to it on the radio if possible. The internet also now offers the possibility of enjoying a game more fully than free television. It's one of those frustrations.