People have to find a way to manage their media consumption in an age when they're bombarded left and right with all kinds of wonderful things
THIS. AAAHHHH SO MUCH THIS.
I simply do not have time to watch all the things that are out there that I gauge as being of possible interest to me. I essentially work two jobs, I travel out of town a fair bit, I live alone (which means all chores/duties/responsibilities of keeping up a living space fall 100% on me) -- I _do not have time_ for much casual viewing or reading. With my time for Stories so limited (I squeeze in most of my weekday reading during meals or in bed, and I watch maybe four or five hours of TV and movies a week), I want the stuff I read or watch to hopefully be stuff I really love. Because if it's something I only find mildly diverting, as opposed to something I fall at least a little bit in love with, I've just used up my outrageously-limited story time with stuff that only passes the time for me. Stories are really important to me -- they keep me going, sometimes; they _inspire_ me, as corny as that sounds -- so I'm not using them to pass the time. I'm using them to _recharge_, and I hate to waste that time on stuff that I don't _really_ have any interest in for sure. That's not to say I NEVER watch stuff to pass the time, because c'mon, everybody does that sometimes. When I've got some time off and/or am hanging with friends, and we dig out some bad B-movie to poke fun at or watch a movie with its RiffTrax, that's very much just casual viewing, there. Sure. But that's the exception to my media consumption these days, not the rule. Simply because I'm so bloody busy.
In the case of BBC Sherlock, you really hit the nail on the head for me. For all that Ritchie's Victorian world is a steampunk-ified, liberally interpreted world -- it IS still Victorian. And that's a huge part of what I dig about it. I love the steampunkified version of Victorian times (I love it quite a lot) -- but I want it to still be essentially _Victorian_, somewhere. The BBC Sherlock is not Victorian, and, while there is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of it (it's actually pretty _clever_ an idea, putting Holmes and Watson in a modern-day setting), I am just not interested. I am _just_ not personally interested! If YOU are interested, that's awesome -- go forth and watch and enjoy. But I'm not. _And I don't have time to watch stuff just because it's "good"_. Because I have a Netflix account and every show in the history of ever is available on DVD, so I can either watch everything that everyone thinks I should watch, or do everything else in life. I just wish more people would SEE it that way, because I come out of conversations feeling _guilty_ for not putting BBC Sherlock or Dr. Horrible or Community on my to-watch list. And -- I'm not judging anybody for liking those shows! I am sure they are great! I just am choosing not to watch them because YOU CAN'T WATCH _EVERYTHING_, okay??
(:pant, pant:) ... thank you, thank you, sorry to rant. I feel better now, though. Think I needed to get that all off my chest. ;-) I think I'm going to start linking people to that NPR article, to boot ...
THIS. AAAHHHH SO MUCH THIS.
I simply do not have time to watch all the things that are out there that I gauge as being of possible interest to me. I essentially work two jobs, I travel out of town a fair bit, I live alone (which means all chores/duties/responsibilities of keeping up a living space fall 100% on me) -- I _do not have time_ for much casual viewing or reading. With my time for Stories so limited (I squeeze in most of my weekday reading during meals or in bed, and I watch maybe four or five hours of TV and movies a week), I want the stuff I read or watch to hopefully be stuff I really love. Because if it's something I only find mildly diverting, as opposed to something I fall at least a little bit in love with, I've just used up my outrageously-limited story time with stuff that only passes the time for me. Stories are really important to me -- they keep me going, sometimes; they _inspire_ me, as corny as that sounds -- so I'm not using them to pass the time. I'm using them to _recharge_, and I hate to waste that time on stuff that I don't _really_ have any interest in for sure. That's not to say I NEVER watch stuff to pass the time, because c'mon, everybody does that sometimes. When I've got some time off and/or am hanging with friends, and we dig out some bad B-movie to poke fun at or watch a movie with its RiffTrax, that's very much just casual viewing, there. Sure. But that's the exception to my media consumption these days, not the rule. Simply because I'm so bloody busy.
In the case of BBC Sherlock, you really hit the nail on the head for me. For all that Ritchie's Victorian world is a steampunk-ified, liberally interpreted world -- it IS still Victorian. And that's a huge part of what I dig about it. I love the steampunkified version of Victorian times (I love it quite a lot) -- but I want it to still be essentially _Victorian_, somewhere. The BBC Sherlock is not Victorian, and, while there is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of it (it's actually pretty _clever_ an idea, putting Holmes and Watson in a modern-day setting), I am just not interested. I am _just_ not personally interested! If YOU are interested, that's awesome -- go forth and watch and enjoy. But I'm not. _And I don't have time to watch stuff just because it's "good"_. Because I have a Netflix account and every show in the history of ever is available on DVD, so I can either watch everything that everyone thinks I should watch, or do everything else in life. I just wish more people would SEE it that way, because I come out of conversations feeling _guilty_ for not putting BBC Sherlock or Dr. Horrible or Community on my to-watch list. And -- I'm not judging anybody for liking those shows! I am sure they are great! I just am choosing not to watch them because YOU CAN'T WATCH _EVERYTHING_, okay??
(:pant, pant:) ... thank you, thank you, sorry to rant. I feel better now, though. Think I needed to get that all off my chest. ;-) I think I'm going to start linking people to that NPR article, to boot ...
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