Cranky Is Coming

[slightlyoffaxis]

So, we signed up for HBO. It was nice knowing you all.

Jesse immediately dived in and started DVRing movies. (Jesse, I swear Cyrus is on Netflix Instant-you don't need to take up DVR space with it!) I, on the other hand, wanted to start sampling all of those shows that everyone raves about but I'd been barred from since I (before now) refused to

Comments

[freakjaw]

You brought up two things that I was particularly interested in hearing more about, because they tend to be most often brought up in internet pop-culture discussion in negative contexts.

I watch New Girl not because I particularly love it, but because it's amusing, it's quick, and it doesn't tax my brain even in the slightest. I don't have to remember anything about any other episode to enjoy what's going on.

This kind of thing seems to actually be brought up most often in television discussions in a sneering way. "Stupid American audiences are too lazy for Community/Arrested Development/etc. and don't want their brain to be taxed in the slightest."

There wasn't anyone I immediately latched onto as someone to root for.

This is more often used as a way to complain about studio/executive/network interference smoothing out or "dumbing down" stuff because they're afraid that those "stupid American audiences" have to have a likeable main character that they have to root for unambiguously.

Those two things stood out as interesting to me particularly because they tend to come up so often in those negative contexts, but you're a smart person who is saying both of those things! You kind of get into it a bit, and it seems like you're still kind of figuring it out yourself, but I'd love to hear more. You mention later that "it's key to have great characters in any kind of show," but I wasn't sure if that also meant "sympathetic/likeable" characters. Is that just an emotional preference (maybe similar/related to your distaste for awkward or embarrassing situations on The Office or Parks and Recreation)? The language here gets kind of tricky, because I will often like or love characters that would be nightmares to deal with in real life. I might like them if they make me laugh (like the characters in Arrested Development or Seinfeld), I might like them because they're good at something (like Don Draper at his job in Mad Men or Nucky Thompson & Tony Soprano at their respective criminal careers), I might like them because my lizard-brain sides with them viscerally in a struggle (like wanting, against all reason, David Brent to keep his job or wanting some of the sleazier characters in Justified or the ciphers in The Walking Dead to survive), or they might just be charismatic (Boyd Crowder or Ben Linus, for instance). Heck, I might just like them for the dramatic impact they have in a show/story. All of these obviously offer more reasons to like them than just these generalizations (a good character contains multitudes! and in the case of The Walking Dead, they didn't give me enough outside that one reason to keep me around), but those are certainly elements that have contributed to my rooting interest and still don't make them "likeable" in the sense that I'd like to hang out with them. And regarding the other issue, do you have trouble remembering the particular kinds of things that these shows require you remember or do you just not like having to do it? Or maybe the problem is when it's coupled with some other aesthetic hangup or an actor that rubs you the wrong way or some other frustrating element? I tend to personally find it a rewarding tactic, and think that when it's done well it can enable a much richer sense of character or story than is possible in some other forms of storytelling. But I'm genuinely curious to hear your objections.

And you totally should watch more Deadwood! Are you going to start over? How much do you actually remember from last year? I couldn't actually remember if we watched two or three episodes!

[slightlyoffaxis]

OK, there is much to discuss.

First, I'd say that no, you didn't "give it enough of a chance" and that two non-consecutive hours aren't a good way to judge a 10-hour season.

I'm interested in what you think is a fair chance. Is it that I didn't give it enough time, or start at the beginning, or pay enough attention? Because you're starting to inch up to the halfway mark, which is a slippery slope to "watch the whole thing, and then decide if you like it after." Which might be your opinion, but I'm not really willing to put that much time into figuring out if I like a TV show or not.

The novel/TV analogy isn't perfect but it's definitely applicable.

I agree that it's definitely applicable. (Though I'd argue that, even if it's not the best way to pick up a book, you can learn something from sampling a chapter in the middle--like if you like the writing style or the genre.) The thing is, I don't really want all of my television shows to be like novels. There are definitely some HBO-style shows I enjoy--some of my favorites, too--and I'll continue to seek those out and follow them week-to-week from beginning to end like a good TV viewer. But I also enjoy (or did--they seem to be dying out) shows that I didn't have to put as much effort into--shows I could catch if I was around, but I didn't have to follow through-plotlines and make sure I saw all of the episodes in the correct order. And it's not that I'm too stupid or lazy (or at least I hope I'm not), it's just that I'll put in the work for my very-favorite shows, but not for the second-tier shows that I just want to flip to every once in a while if I'm not doing anything else. (You seem a bit more perfectionist and methodical about the way you watch TV, so I don't know if you can relate.) More and more, these are becoming procedural (see my relationship to House), and I think that's a little bit sad. If Game of Thrones had one-off episodes, I might be inclined to watch them. (Or, alternately, if X-Files never had any one-off episodes, I never would've watched it.) To use the novel analogy again, I wish that more shows would be more like short stories, or stand-alone chapters.

This is what I mean about not taxing my brain, too. I do like dense, thorny dramas, but they're not the only kinds of shows I like. I don't want to be slavishly devoted to every show I have a passing interest in, so it's nice to have a few shows on the DVR that don't require that kind of effort. There's no way I'd watch New Girl or Happy Endings if they required week-to-week viewing a close attention to plot details because I just don't care about them that much--but I like that I can watch them every so often and still get something out of them. (I didn't watch Arrested Development from the very-first episode or every week, and I still thought it was hilarious when I caught it. It was only after I was already in love that I sat and watched a marathon on FX and saw everything in order. Obviously, you get more of the jokes that way, but it wasn't essential for enjoyment. The season-long arcs weren't the only things that show had going on.) I don't think it's wrong to be a casual fan of a series, but it's getting harder.

[slightlyoffaxis]

Stupid American audiences have to have a likeable main character that they have to root for unambiguously.

When I said "someone to root for," I definitely meant in a very specific-to-me type of way. I can't think of anything more unlikeable-to-me than an unambiguous, virtuous, one-dimensional good guy. I love Boyd Crowder and Ben Linus. I root for Nucky Thompson and Rumpelstiltskin is my favorite thing about Once Upon a Time. They can be assholes, so long as they're great assholes.

I still didn't find anyone to care about in Game of Thrones. And "root for" is very specific in that show, since everyone is vying for that throne. Sometime during my viewing, I sat back and thought, "Who's side am I on?" and the answer was basically no one's. (I admit that Arya was intriguing, and I did enjoy Peter Dinklage but I can't tell if it was him or his character I was responding to--and I only saw one second of Chris from Skins but it was enough to make him my favorite.) After I came to that conclusion, the whole thing seemed like "Don' You Go Rounin' Roun to Re Ro,'" where it was a whole lot of killing over very little money (or little payoff). I was a little bit curious about what happened to some of them, but not enough to spend 10 hours of my life on. (The details you filled in on our walk to/from Papacitos were enough.) So if, in my two hours, I found a horse for that race that I really felt strongly about, maybe it would've been more of an enticement to watch more of it and get for-real hooked on the show.

Some day, I'll figure out why I love Kings but not Game of Thrones.

[rockmarooned]

Some day, I'll figure out why I love Kings but not Game of Thrones.

I think some of it is a style thing. Though TV is more cinematic overall than ten or twenty years ago, there tends to be more of a house style, I think, on shows or even channels. I recall at Mike's a few weeks ago, we were geeking out over specific X-Files staffers who wrote or directed cool episodes. I don't get that from my favorite shows these days. So a lot more is on the show's house style to draw you in. Though I find the big-picture story in Justified engrossing, one of the things I like most about the show is its dialogue and tone. It's more Elmore Leonard-influenced house style than a particular TV writer's style, but it's at least distinctive enough to pop out from all of the plot mechanics, and it's why I know I'd watch the show even if they didn't construct intricate season arcs. I love Boardwalk Empire, but it feels more like someone's movie that they hire people to execute in one-hour segments... and this is a weird comparison, but if it WAS a movie, I'm not sure if it would be on par with, say, Scorsese or the best of Coppola or any number of directors. It feels less personal, and more falls to the ongoing storyline versus individual episode-craft.

So it may be that Kings had a refreshing style that got you over the hump of, OK, this is basically high-toned, well-wrought, impeccably made soap (which is how I feel about a lot of dramas over time).

[slightlyoffaxis]

It's true. Kings felt more unlike anything I'd ever seen before, while Game of Thrones felt a little more familiar, so just the general world of Kings was more engrossing to me.

Or maybe I just don't like horses.

[freakjaw]

I agree about Boardwalk Empire, and it helps identify a distinction I've felt between that show and some of the other great HBO/HBO-style shows. The Sopranos feels deeply idiosyncratic and personal and Deadwood and Luck also have an incredibly strong voice/point of view. Even The Wire and Treme have a real authorial stamp. After watching those shows I feel like I have a real sense of the worldviews/quirks/obsessions/politics/etc. of Davids Chase, Milch & Simon. Same goes for Matt Weiner and Mad Men. But after two seasons of Boardwalk Empire, I don't feel like I have the same sense of Terrence Winter. I do feel like the second season of the show made a few strides in that direction, but it does feel more like a good story well told than something he's pulled from his guts.

Pet Theory Time: I can't remember where it was, but I once read a good analysis of a few television shows that focused on their "story-engines." These were the central organizing concepts that generated stories for a show. Your engine could be "curmudgeonly but brilliant doctor treats weird diseases at a teaching hospital" or "group of young attractive people living/dating in New York." A strong engine offers many potential stories, and without one you have to have strong, vivid characters to carry that weight. I think about this whenever The X-Files comes up because I think it might have had the single greatest story engines ever. It was so elastic and so simple that it allowed for an incredible variety of stories, didn't tie them down to a single location, allowed the writers to even experiment with different genres, anchored it to a recognizable procedural style, gave the characters resources, support, and a degree of authority. It's just so genius, and the central character dynamic of skeptic vs. believer is a killer anchor for a show like that. And the semi-anthology nature of the show lent itself, probably more than any show I can think of, to letting the writers of individual episodes to exercise really distinct voices. Futurama has a similarly beautiful story engine (intergalactic delivery service!). And Doctor Who has a ridiculously expansive one (crazy old man travelling around to anywhere in time and space).

[slightlyoffaxis]

Curious: Can you think of a show that you liked where you didn't like the story engine but did like the characters?

[freakjaw]

That's a good question. I don't think I've regularly watched any shows where I actively disliked the story engine, but Happy Endings is actually one where I wonder how it would have played for me if I'd watched from the beginning. Initially, it seems like they had the idea that Dave and Alex's break-up and attempt to get along for the sake of the group would generate stories, but they backed off of that situation in favor of just having the six main characters themselves function as the story engine (a la Seinfeld or Friends). It sounds like Cougar Town did a similar thing where once they had characters they liked they essentially dropped the story engine they started with and just relied on their characters to fill the void.

I'd definitely say that I stuck with House longer than I found the story engine engaging because I liked the character/performance.

[freakjaw]

I'm interested in what you think is a fair chance.

Perhaps I'm wrong to use "fair chance" here since, as I mentioned, I think you're right that the show is not your bag. And I think you can definitely tell, sampling-a-chapter-in-a-book-style, that the show's genre or style (of dialog, performance, filmmaking, design, etc.) aren't to your liking based on two non-consecutive hours. And I'd imagine that after watching two hours of a ten hour show, if you haven't found anybody you'd have any interest in watching further, you're right that it's not your thing. But I'd also argue that whether you're reading a random chapter in a book or watching a random episode of a heavily serialized show (maybe tied with The Wire in my experience...Thrones is, after all, literally a ten-episode adaptation of a single book), it isn't fair to say "there's no story" or "the characters aren't likeable" when there are hours of (readily available) context and storytelling before the material you're reacting to. In that sense, what I really meant was that a fair shot would be spending those two hours of time watching the show from the beginning. This wouldn't mean that you'd love (or even like) the show, and I'm sure there are people who might be hooked by watching a random episode and sparking to a particular performance or scene or plot turn, but I do think that the more good-faith way to approach this story (most stories?) is from the start. I suspect that if you watched the whole season you'd place Tyrion (Dinklage's character) alongside some of the other non-"likeable" characters that you really like, but I wouldn't argue that the reward would be worth how much it sounds like you'd dislike other stuff in the show.

You reference being at-odds with the HBO style of drama, and I suspect that's actually intrinsic to the business and artistic DNA of the network. As a subscription service, I bet they're not going for casual viewers. They're probably looking for shows where you don't want to miss an episode (hence the re-airings and now On Demand and HBOGo availability of all transmitted episodes). They're looking for active viewers who are going to subscribe because they have to watch every episode of Boardwalk Empire or Game of Thrones or whatever. They want all of their shows to be your first-tier shows. They're not so much in the "grab your eyeballs while you're channel surfing" game as they are in the "our shows are the highest quality must-see/don't-miss shows" game (and it might be a separate conversation, but I think that game has really grown and defined itself along with the internet). And from a creative perspective, the HBO model of writing and producing an entire (shorter) season, without the struggle of getting the order for the back nine episodes, or trying to hang onto their audience through commercial breaks, or making sure that any given episode is accessible for a casual viewer, must be exciting. You're freed from some of the content and storytelling restraints of the network model and can experiment with things like serialization or playing with the audience's sympathies. That said, the HBO (and HBO-style) shows I've seen don't all have the same place on a spectrum of how modular the episodes are. The Wire and Game of Thrones are entirely serialized. Episodes have shape, and sometimes even coherent stand-alone-ish themes, but they are largely just chapters in a story. Something like The Sopranos or Mad Men had more variety and I think they might be easier series to sample in that way. I wonder if there are numbers somewhere tracking how many viewers actually approach those shows in a casual manner (it's hard to tell online where the people talking about them tend to be the fans who keep up with them).

[slightlyoffaxis]

I'm still trying to perfect the formula, because first episodes can be tricky. For comedies, the shows often need a few episodes to gel. I wasn't sold on Parks & Rec after the first episode, and I started watching The Office in the third season after catching up with some second-season episodes over the summer--I doubt I would've kept up with it if I'd only seen the first few episodes. For dramas, the pilots can sometimes be deceptively cinematic (The Walking Dead) or cripplingly scene-setting (Jesse's major complaint about Firefly). Sometimes--not always--it's better for me personally if I skip the first episodes and catch up later. I know that probably sounds horrible to you, but I can go back after a show has hit its stride and catch up on what I missed, but if I get a really bad impression right away that might kill it for me entirely. But that's not always the case. So I'm still trying to figure out the magic number of episodes I need to watch to make sure I get past the early-episode humps, but not so much that I waste too much time waiting for something I'll never like to get good.

With Game of Thrones specifically, I think it is valid to say that not enough was going on for me in terms of the story. I saw two hours and didn't really see anything happen but a lot of people marching from place to place. Maybe if you told me that every-other episode was amazing and I was just unlucky enough to catch the people-moving ones, I might feel like I slighted the show. ("You saw the worst fifth of the series! All the good stuff happens in the other four-fifths!") But I get the impression that no, really, all the episodes are like that, and if I didn't like what I saw there was really nothing else there for me, especially because I saw two episode ends and really just thought, "That's it?" They weren't cliffhangery for me.

[freakjaw]

I think there probably is no magic number. As you say, each show is different and will have a different shape to it. You've only got so much time, so if something puts you off there's no shame in missing it, even if it's supposed to be really good or have "gotten good." I'm pretty convinced I wouldn't like Heroes, no matter how many things it supposedly did well, but I can't know for sure if some later episode would have turned me around or not, because I'll never (neverrrrr!) watch it.

Now, I'm not trying to convince you to watch more Game of Thrones. I agree that if you didn't like what you saw that you probably wouldn't be into the show. But if you saw the episodes you named up top, then in addition to halves of two different early season episodes (which were definitely more scene-setting, along the lines of early season Boardwalk Empire episodes) you saw the second to last episode of the season and plenty of stuff happened. Perhaps it didn't register because you hadn't seen the preceding episode/episodes, or perhaps you just couldn't find the show's wavelength, but maybe you can understand how somebody who watched the whole thing would be confused by your characterization that you didn't see "anything happen but a lot of people marching from place to place." In addition to character development and political intrigue (which, granted, might have been lost on you/uninteresting without having seen the first eight episodes of the season), you literally saw: SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES IF THERE'S ANYBODY OTHER THAN THE THREE OF US SOMEHOW STILL READING THIS: the aftermath of a significant military victory, the capture of an important character, and a life-or-death decision involving some kind of black magic that endangers an unborn child. And for a cliffhanger ending, there was beheading of the ostensible star of the show.

[slightlyoffaxis]

Still spoilers.

I think I might be wrong about which episodes I saw, because I saw no beheadings. That would definitely count as something happening.

The episodes I saw I think both ended with the girl and her swordfighting lessons--in one, she was just starting, in another, she was trying to balance on one toe for as long as she could? I'm not sure if those were the final moments I saw of the episodes I did, but at least one of them ended that way.

[freakjaw]

What you're saying about television moving more in an unfriendly-to-casual-viewer direction feels right to me, but I'm curious to know if it's true. I assume with the critical (and in some cases viewer) success of the HBO model of drama, and the rise of internet chatter about television, that there are more of those kinds of shows than ever, but how many more? Is the disconnect more that the really good shows, the shows that are getting the best reviews and most conversation, are those kinds of shows? You were interested in sampling Game of Thrones, a show that doesn't lend itself to casual viewing, but I don't think you watch any of the CSIs or something like Castle, even casually. And based on your stated preferences House seems like the ideal show for you, yet you stopped watching (me too!), because new technology was somehow changing the way you watched television, even against your stated preference. I'm also rather curious to hear what shows you used to watch that fit better into your preferred casual viewing mode. Freaks and Geeks is an obvious example of a great, great show that could be enjoyed that way, but it was so good that I assume you'd be watching it regularly and not casually if it was on today. And you mention The X-Files and I guess that's probably a pretty good example of what sounds like your lost ideal. It was lightly serialized (I bet the "mythology" stuff only made up about a third of the series) and it had a kind of anthology show-style modularity combined with great characters that provided continuity and something you knew you could root for every week.

When we talked about this a while back, I think I tried to break television drama down into the procedural/serial (or soap opera) dichotomy, and while that's semi-useful I guess it might also be more like a spectrum. I called Once Upon a Time a procedural, but I think it really is trying to straddle that line (the Hansel and Gretel and Red Riding Hood episodes were procedural, but some of the others have seemed much more soap in nature). I know you watch it regularly, but I wonder if it would work as the kind of casual-viewing show you're looking for, or if it's too Lost-like for that.

You probably are on to something that shows that would have been much more stand-alone a couple of decades ago have more serialization leaking into them (this would require a lot more research than I'm gonna do, and probably would mean I'd have to learn something about modern shows like Psych or Fairly Legal). And this does seem like something that must be at least partially influenced by the internet. Starting with newsgroups and message boards, and now with episode-by-episode reviewing, with words like "arc" and "mythology" being thrown around constantly, I imagine writers look at that kind of storytelling as a way to hook in and motivate a fan-base (and many of them probably are also post-Buffy/X-Files fans of that kind of storytelling themselves).

it's just that I'll put in the work for my very-favorite shows, but not for the second-tier shows that I just want to flip to every once in a while

I found this kind of instructive! Maybe I just seized on a word-choice that you didn't meant to invest with the same meaning, but the idea of approaching a story and engaging with it as work really struck me. I imagine there must have been times where I've made similar statements about some show or movie, but I generally really find engaging with a story and recalling and applying previous information and context to be fun or rewarding! It's kind of foreign to me, but I can see how it would be frustrating to do if you feel like that's just something to be endured to get to whatever else you actually do find rewarding. Kind of similar to our discussions of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I guess.

[rockmarooned]

I find the second-tier thing instructive, too. It may be why I'm much better at adding new comedies to watch than new dramas (given the largely serial-or-procedural nature of hourlongs in the past decade or so). New Girl and Happy Endings are basically second-tier shows for me, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of them; I don't think they're as brilliant as 30 Rock or Parks and Recreation, but they definitely make me laugh and smile more than enough for 22 minutes.

Whereas if I started watching Luck or Game of Thrones or The Good Wife or Awake, basically one of two things happen [if I don't straight-up dislike them]: either they become one of my favorite shows like Justified, or they become second-tier shows that take up way more time and effort than New Girl despite being approximately as enjoyable. Given how few shows are likely to become my favorite, the latter seems more likely and, as such, a lot of work just to like something, when there are so many stand-alone movies I might prefer to watch (I guess procedurals are relatively less work, so if there was some fantasy-type show with less of a serialized element, maybe I could bring that aboard, like Pushing Daisies or something).

NYPD Blue, when I used to watch it with my mom, was a second-tier hourlong show. So was Boston Public. I'm sure a lot of current hourlongs are in fact better-written and better-acted than most of those, yet there was an ease and comfort to those shows (even when I found them involving or moving) that kept me coming back. Something like Mad Man, it's very easy to say, OK, I'll watch that later as a whole, the same way I'd say "I should definitely read The Corrections!" Sometimes I'd just rather sit down and read (or watch) some Elmore Leonard.

[slightlyoffaxis]

Yeah, for me it comes down to this: I have an hour to watch television. What's going to give me the most enjoyment?

Right now, it's two episodes of 30 Rock or Parks and Recreation, but we watch those right away, so they aren't usually available. Same goes for Justified or Boardwalk Empire (if the episodes were available).

So, after I've exhausted my favorites, what's next? Something that I'd enjoy either because it makes me laugh, or I like the characters, or I like the world that it's set in. Engaging with a story just for engaging with a story's sake isn't really fun for me if I don't care what's going on, or like the world, or any of the people in that world. And I'm still trying to define how quickly to pull the plug, but if something doesn't grab me on any of those levels, there are other shows out there that do on some level, even if they're not brilliant (Happy Endings, for example).

[freakjaw]

Engaging with a story just for engaging with a story's sake isn't really fun for me if I don't care what's going on, or like the world, or any of the people in that world.

Agreed. I'm gathering that I'm just an easier audience in that regard (caring what's going on, liking the world or the people in that world). I'd probably tell myself that I'm just really interested in a lot of subjects/kinds of people, but I also suspect one man's "curiosity about the world/ease with empathy" is another woman's "too easily impressed/not discerning enough."

That said, this last post definitely helped me understand better where you're coming from!