5 ms·

>TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash. >TV had it's heyday I can tell you don't watch much TV. It's never been better. We're

>TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash. >TV had it's heyday I can tell you don't watch much TV. It's never been better. We're in a golden age of TV, it's just not on ESPN. There have recently been a lot of extremely high quality, hour long dramas, which basically amount to a movie every week. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Wire, arguably Westworld, to name a few.

friedman23 10y ago
All of those programs are available on demand on the internet. When people talk about TV in this context they are talking about cable not the content.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wcummings 10y ago
  The parent comment was discussing the quality of the content.
superquest 10y ago
True. And it's easier to watch these on the internet (legally or illegally) than on "TV".
- wcummings 10y ago
  Whether you watch it on TV or pay HBO (or Netflix or whoever) to stream it they're still TV shows, produced by TV networks. It's the format, not the delivery that matters. The parent comment was obviously about the quality of the content. Nobody cares whether it comes over coax or TCP.
  - superquest 10y ago
    The presence or absence of commercials is a huge element in the "format". It's possible to never see commercials online -- which isn't possible on TV. Also, Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority".
    - wcummings 10y ago
      >Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority". There are higher quality TV shows than ever before. To say TV "had its heyday" is outrageous. TV, not movies, is where the magic is happening these days. I know people who have paid for HBO accounts to watch shows as soon as they come out (instead of pirating them or binging them a few years later), ditto for cable subs and commercials. The average consumer is not bothered by this stuff IME.
  - michaelbuckbee 10y ago
    The on demand nature of modern TV show delivery has allowed for a huge shift to serialized storytelling. Previously, there was a real drive for standalone episodes as there was significant money to be made by syndicating shows post their original air date. And, of course the conventional wisdom of "if someone misses an episode they'll quit watching".
snoman 10y ago
Those are great, but those are all HBO, if I recall, which is decidedly not TV in my opinion (I have HBO Now). You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash or available somewhere else without obnoxious ads (loudness mitigation is a lie) and cheaper.
- wcummings 10y ago
  >those are all HBO >You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash Breaking Bad and Mad Men were both on AMC.
  - snoman 10y ago
    Ah, my mistake. I could have sworn I saw them listed on HBO. While this might disprove my statement, I don't think it's entirely without merit, still.
    - Retra 10y ago
      Well, I think Breaking Bad is also on Netflix.
  - TheAceOfHearts 10y ago
    If you're picking up Breaking Bad right now, you'd watch it on Netflix. The only reason you'd watch it on TV is if you're catching it the first time it's airing. I only joined on the last season so I don't have much context, but everyone I knew in college would wait for it to air and immediately torrent the commercial-free episode. For something huge like the ending I know some people that hosted small viewing parties to watch it live, but many were fine with waiting. Also, Breaking Bad ended in 2013, and Mad Men in 2015. That list only has two entries. Maybe not literally everything on live cable TV is trash, but I think it highlights that there's a clear decline.
    - chris_7 10y ago
      The obvious example is The Americans, and... nothing else comes to mind. Everything else worth watching is created by Netflix or HBO (or maybe Amazon).
enobrev 10y ago
I have a hard time agreeing that these new series fall under the category of Television. TV _is_ explicitly the format in which the content is delivered (device and delivery). It used to be broadcast live, whether over the air or by cable, and those formats required payment for said delivery. Now actual televisions aren't necessarily part of the equation. Plenty of people are watching these series on their phones and laptops and tablets, and sometimes televisions, but not in the way they used to be delivered to said screens. I agree that we're in something of a golden age for episodic story-telling. I agree that this story-telling was born from broadcast television. I don't agree that it, in its current incantation, can be plainly categorized as "TV". In the same way that a mobile device is no longer a telephone, though we may still call it one from time to time, and a TV remote is no longer a "clicker", no matter how many times my parents call it one.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- labster 10y ago
  Names of formats have a way of sticking around. The novel hasn't been new for a long time. Films are distributed with disks, and solid state disk drives have neither disks nor drives. Language moves on. We already have a retronym[1] called "broadcast television" that incorporates what you're describing, while the definition of television will probably change with our devices. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mercer 10y ago
While I've been a huge fan of this 'golden age of TV', I can't help but wonder to which degree I'm fooling myself by spending hours on 'extremely high quality' television that ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way. The Wire felt like it actually taught me something and made me think about society and my role in it. But to what extent are Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Westworld basically same as daytime soap operas dressed up so they're palatable to 'discerning' consumers? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I do find that many people, myself included, justify their TV habits by arguing that we're watching 'quality' TV instead of the usual daytime garbage. (I've been reading Infinite Jest and recently read Wallace' "E Unibus Pluram"[1], so this has been on my mind.) [1]: https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf
- krapht 10y ago
  Does something have to have a pecuniary reward to be worthwhile? Stories have been told since the beginning of humanity, and I'm sorry if you see them as a waste of time.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  >> "ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way." How is entertaining you not improving your life?
  - mercer 10y ago
    I love getting junk food every once in a while. It 'improves' my life because I enjoy it. Eating a lot of it regularly would not. I'm not judging anyone and I'm by no means saying that it's easy to discern how 'junk' a form of entertainment is. I'm just saying that I started wondering whether this quality food I'm having a lot of might just be cleverly dressed up junk food. Specifically in regards to 'quality' shows like GoT and Westworld. I really don't mean that in a pretentious way. I watch stuff that most people would probably consider junk, so that would be hypocritical of me.
- SixSigma 10y ago
turndown 10y ago
Of those five you listed, three are no longer running.

friedman23 10y ago

All of those programs are available on demand on the internet. When people talk about TV in this context they are talking about cable not the content.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wcummings 10y ago
The parent comment was discussing the quality of the content.

superquest 10y ago

True. And it's easier to watch these on the internet (legally or illegally) than on "TV".

wcummings 10y ago
Whether you watch it on TV or pay HBO (or Netflix or whoever) to stream it they're still TV shows, produced by TV networks. It's the format, not the delivery that matters. The parent comment was obviously about the quality of the content. Nobody cares whether it comes over coax or TCP.
- superquest 10y ago
  The presence or absence of commercials is a huge element in the "format". It's possible to never see commercials online -- which isn't possible on TV. Also, Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority".
  - wcummings 10y ago
    >Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority". There are higher quality TV shows than ever before. To say TV "had its heyday" is outrageous. TV, not movies, is where the magic is happening these days. I know people who have paid for HBO accounts to watch shows as soon as they come out (instead of pirating them or binging them a few years later), ditto for cable subs and commercials. The average consumer is not bothered by this stuff IME.
- michaelbuckbee 10y ago
  The on demand nature of modern TV show delivery has allowed for a huge shift to serialized storytelling. Previously, there was a real drive for standalone episodes as there was significant money to be made by syndicating shows post their original air date. And, of course the conventional wisdom of "if someone misses an episode they'll quit watching".

snoman 10y ago

Those are great, but those are all HBO, if I recall, which is decidedly not TV in my opinion (I have HBO Now). You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash or available somewhere else without obnoxious ads (loudness mitigation is a lie) and cheaper.

wcummings 10y ago
>those are all HBO >You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash Breaking Bad and Mad Men were both on AMC.
- snoman 10y ago
  Ah, my mistake. I could have sworn I saw them listed on HBO. While this might disprove my statement, I don't think it's entirely without merit, still.
  - Retra 10y ago
    Well, I think Breaking Bad is also on Netflix.
- TheAceOfHearts 10y ago
  If you're picking up Breaking Bad right now, you'd watch it on Netflix. The only reason you'd watch it on TV is if you're catching it the first time it's airing. I only joined on the last season so I don't have much context, but everyone I knew in college would wait for it to air and immediately torrent the commercial-free episode. For something huge like the ending I know some people that hosted small viewing parties to watch it live, but many were fine with waiting. Also, Breaking Bad ended in 2013, and Mad Men in 2015. That list only has two entries. Maybe not literally everything on live cable TV is trash, but I think it highlights that there's a clear decline.
  - chris_7 10y ago
    The obvious example is The Americans, and... nothing else comes to mind. Everything else worth watching is created by Netflix or HBO (or maybe Amazon).

enobrev 10y ago

I have a hard time agreeing that these new series fall under the category of Television. TV _is_ explicitly the format in which the content is delivered (device and delivery). It used to be broadcast live, whether over the air or by cable, and those formats required payment for said delivery. Now actual televisions aren't necessarily part of the equation. Plenty of people are watching these series on their phones and laptops and tablets, and sometimes televisions, but not in the way they used to be delivered to said screens. I agree that we're in something of a golden age for episodic story-telling. I agree that this story-telling was born from broadcast television. I don't agree that it, in its current incantation, can be plainly categorized as "TV". In the same way that a mobile device is no longer a telephone, though we may still call it one from time to time, and a TV remote is no longer a "clicker", no matter how many times my parents call it one.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
labster 10y ago
Names of formats have a way of sticking around. The novel hasn't been new for a long time. Films are distributed with disks, and solid state disk drives have neither disks nor drives. Language moves on. We already have a retronym[1] called "broadcast television" that incorporates what you're describing, while the definition of television will probably change with our devices. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mercer 10y ago

While I've been a huge fan of this 'golden age of TV', I can't help but wonder to which degree I'm fooling myself by spending hours on 'extremely high quality' television that ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way. The Wire felt like it actually taught me something and made me think about society and my role in it. But to what extent are Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Westworld basically same as daytime soap operas dressed up so they're palatable to 'discerning' consumers? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I do find that many people, myself included, justify their TV habits by arguing that we're watching 'quality' TV instead of the usual daytime garbage. (I've been reading Infinite Jest and recently read Wallace' "E Unibus Pluram"[1], so this has been on my mind.) [1]: https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

krapht 10y ago
Does something have to have a pecuniary reward to be worthwhile? Stories have been told since the beginning of humanity, and I'm sorry if you see them as a waste of time.
k-mcgrady 10y ago
>> "ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way." How is entertaining you not improving your life?
- mercer 10y ago
  I love getting junk food every once in a while. It 'improves' my life because I enjoy it. Eating a lot of it regularly would not. I'm not judging anyone and I'm by no means saying that it's easy to discern how 'junk' a form of entertainment is. I'm just saying that I started wondering whether this quality food I'm having a lot of might just be cleverly dressed up junk food. Specifically in regards to 'quality' shows like GoT and Westworld. I really don't mean that in a pretentious way. I watch stuff that most people would probably consider junk, so that would be hypocritical of me.
SixSigma 10y ago

turndown 10y ago

Of those five you listed, three are no longer running.