Post submitted by: Alan Green You can submit a post here
In the 40’s and 50’s TV was home to schlock. The antics of Mr. Ed and Lucy entertained kids with juvenile predictable humor, and this did not change through the 70’s and 80’s with shows like Three’s Company, The A-Team, etc. Now, though, the quality of TV shows is often better than that found on the big screen. In their article at Guardian Unlimited, ‘Move Over Hollywood’, John Patterson and Gareth McLean describe the new TV that is giving audiences a reason to stay home, or put another way, less of a reason to go to the movies. With shows like ‘The Sopranos’, ‘Deadwood’, and ‘Six Feet Under’ TV has grown out of its hokey past and become the new home of quality writing, compelling drama, and edgy suspense thrillers.
Patterson and McLean write:
“James Woods, the star of the new legal drama Shark, is part of this year’s mass migration to the small, well, smaller screen. His main reason: better material. “I’ve been lamenting the horrible state of the movie industry the past few years,” he told the LA Times in March. “When I was young, everyone pooh-poohed television, and now every time I turn [it] on, I see some extraordinarily interesting series.'”
Also from their article: “One of the main fields of conflict between television and movies has always been technology, and the quality of the sound and image. When TV first put Hollywood on notice in the 50s, the suddenly beleaguered studios responded with the razzle-dazzle of CinemaScope and TechniColor to retain their audiences. The foot-wide, oval-shaped, black-and-white TV screen of 1952 was no match for a movie screen the size of a warehouse wall in vibrant colour. Although TVs grew larger and were able to project colour from the late 50s, the technological gap between TV and movies still persists, but it’s narrowing all the time.”
And: “As Bogdanovich says, “Better movies would help.” Today, we are offered a fast-food McMovie experience that is dismayingly TV-like, the screens often clotted with big-screen TV show remakes and product placement.
Meanwhile, television has become infinitely more cinematic, just as audiences have progressively become more cine-literate. Gone are the all-over lighting and static cameras of the old made-for-TV movie, to be replaced, often, by superbly kinetic and inventive film-making, shot on film, often in wide-screen formats and on location, using big budgets (Lost’s opener, for example, cost a record-breaking $10m), special effects and hit-parade soundtracks.”
With box office performance increasingly shaky, piracy concerns in the digital age, and declining interest in the movie theater experience, Hollywood may have yet another problem to contend with: high quality TV that keeps people home.
Jerry Leigh
i did not associate, or ‘tie’ as you put it, mr. ed with the sopranos. i said mr. ed was schlock. if you disagree so be it. if you do not think it was juvenile, so be it. i do not see how you came to the conclusion i was comparing mr. ed to the sopranos. i was not.
if i am somehow mistaken, allow me to clarify: i do not see how mr. ed can be compared to the sompranos. maybe someone could make such a comparison, but i am not capable of it.
the author
ps – also, strictly speaking, i did not say mr. ed was on in the40’s or 50’s. i said mr. ed and lucy were juvenile and predictable, and that tv in the 40’s and 50’s was schlock.
also, in the traditional show-biz sense (which arose from vaudeville and survived through the 60’s, ‘schlock’ is not an insult. schlock is a type of slap-stick, vaudevillian humor which was popular in the 40’s, 50’s, and somewhat, in the 60’s. this type of humor was also very popular in radio shows of the era.
today, though, ‘schlock’ has more of a derogatory flavor.
I understand where the author is going with this, but I have to disagree with this notion that 40s and 50s TV was “shlock.” Lucy, while not The Office or even Seinfeld, was anything but juvenlie. The author is also making a poor comparsion when tying a light Sit-com like Mr. Ed (the 60s, by the way), to a drama like Sopranos. Better, in a way, would be to compare modern dramas to classics like Alfred Hitchcock or The Twilight Zone — both 50s creations that had great impacts on future TV. If you ever stumble across the the 40s/50s TV show the Goldbergs, you’ll get a feel of what early TV had to offer. Like other shows, this is what the charm was of early TV — fun characters and good dialogue with a bit of creativity.
While we may be happy with some new TV shows, there is still the problem of quality of TV. Yes, there are still 5 or 6 shows on that are good, but I’d much rather watch Lucy and Alfred Hitchcock any day in their B&W glory than theather-quality TV if it’s Joey or the latest teen drama starring people in their 30s.
Don’t forget the new Battlestar Galactica. It’s simply fantastic!
I don’t watch too much Tv because I’m busy watching DVD’s most of the time. But I love watching Lost, Smallville and The O.C. I never knew Lost cost that much….That alot of $$$$$$$$$. But I have to say Lost is one of those shows I can’t get enough of. Each week the show throws a 100 more questions to be answered.
One problem I have with TV shows is they go on for way to long. As each season goes by the less popular a TV show gets. The O.C is going downhill in ratings. It’s not like the first season was. In my opinion this season of Smallville wasn’t the best. Everyone I know says the first season of Lost was better then the second. Alias from what I heard started off very good but went downhill till it got canceled.
I think TV shows should only last 3 seasons tops. If a show goes on for too long, characters begin to change dramatically and the characters lose what first attracted you too the show in the first place. Example The O.C attracted me to it because it was funny but yet delt with one or sometimes two serious issues. Now the show is in it’s 3rd season and everyone on the show has issues. And not one person is making me laugh or smile. Also going back to characters, Ryan when he first came to the O.C was punching people left right and centre, now you be lucky if he punchs a punching bag.
In Smallville I enjoyed Lex and Clark interacting with each other but this season they’re barely in a scene together. Clark in the first 4 seasons as a young man, he was in school and dealing with everyday teenage life and the ”freak of the week” or people trying to learn his secert, now Clark is a man and he no longer goes to school….WHAT NOW???? He is too old to be a young man getting to grips with his powers, I think they should end the show in season 6 and let him because Superman already. There’s not much left to do as Clark Kent.
All in all, Tv shoes have gotten better, with more money and improved GCI. But TV shows last way too long and it’s better a show ends while it’s on top then out stay it’s welcome.