Good-bye Network Dramas

[belsum]

This has been a television season like no other: I just keep jettisoning shows. It’s very liberating. I finally quit Stargate Universe once and for all after being thoroughly bored by the new offering after the mid-season hiatus. That helped me to never even start Caprica after the underwhelming DVD pilot. Idol is fading fast, though I still

Comments

[free_laddicals]

I believe you are missing out on Caprica. It's a completely different beast from BSG, but in a lot of tiny ways, I think it may be a better show overall.

It is absolutely not the show I thought we were getting based on the pilot alone. The first few episodes were a little slow, but around episode 6 it started really moving and by the time we hit the mid-season cliffhanger in Season 10 I was like, "NOOO! There has to be more!" There are some strange and divergent storylines going on, some of which sound completely whacked if you haven't seen the lead-up to them (Joseph Adama gets fixated on a WoW-like game called "New Cap City" while looking for the virtual ghost of his dead daughter? Sounds cracktastic, but it worked).

[belsum]

I don't think I had the problem with Caprica because it wasn't enough like BSG, though I'm sure there are plenty of fans that did in fact have that particular issue. It just seemed...too hard. I don't know. I thought about trying it a lot. I toyed with the idea over and over and it just seemed like work. And frankly I don't need any shows right now that are work. BSG was hard enough but I was completely invested. I wasn't willing to give myself over to something new

[free_laddicals]

You don't give movies a half dozen hours to do the job.

True, but the media are two different animals in spite of their many similarities. Television by its nature, especially on shows that are specifically designed as serials instead of being episodic, is a less compressed form of storytelling.

Fair enough, though. For my part, I was hooked from the get go - the episode 6 marker is just one I've heard tossed around a bit. For my part, I knew I was in for the long haul when Tamara Adama was screaming at Joseph that she couldn't feel her heartbeat.

Though I probably wouldn't love the show nearly as much as I do were it not for Sam Adama, Joseph's mafioso brother, who was criminally underused in the pilot but is definitely the most intriguing character of the show and has a very solid presence in those first six episodes - moreso, in fact, than he does in the more popular back end of the season.

[belsum]

I guess I'm just getting better at letting go if things aren't grabbing me, even if I think they *should* be right in my wheelhouse. My aunt has always said that she just stops reading something if she doesn't like the book. There's too much else out there that she will love and not enough time to get to it all. I must be subconsciously applying it to television, too!

[shanna_s]

I just pulled the plug on Stargate: Universe, myself.

The other good thing about the cable shows is that they show them more than once a week. It's not a case where this timeslot is the only time this show will air, and if you miss it, tough luck. On cable, there's usually a late-night repeat, then maybe a repeat during the weekend and maybe even again before the new episode. That gives a lot more viewing flexibility, which makes it easier to follow a series.

[belsum]

Are you still lurking in the thread on TWoP? I gave that up, too. There were only a handful of people whose posts I was interested in reading anymore (you, TotalTVAddict [

[shanna_s]

I've pretty much given up on the thread since I'm so far behind in watching. The snark was fun at first, but since the show hasn't changed any of the snark-worthy elements, it's become the same points made over and over and over again. I decided that I was devoting way too much time to something I didn't even enjoy.

[belsum]

Totally understand. Great way to put it, too. The snark is the same because the show is the same. It's old and why should I waste my time?

[milkysa]

I am actually very close to pulling the plug on cable, since these days I mostly watch shows via Netflix (and clips of Daily Show and Craig Ferguson online). Hooray for DVDs!

[free_laddicals]

Doooo eeeeet! What I can't get or am not willing to wait for via Netflix, like Caprica or the current season of Doctor Who, I've found I'm willing to shell out a few bucks for each week via Amazon Video On Demand - and even when you total up the cost over the weeks, it's still less than a month of cable (even allowing for any package deals you might have for TV/internet).

[belsum]

That's a great point. iTunes can cover any gaps in coverage that I don't have in all my other methods. We're just about at the end of a special please-don't-leave-us-we'll-make-it-worth-your-while deal with our cable company. Once that expires if they don't sweeten the honey pot again, we're dropping down to basic basic, just to keep the TV/internet package cost for the internet.

[milkysa]

Yeah, it's mostly inertia that has kept us from getting rid of cable. I should look into that again!