The Movie is Dead! Long Live Television!
Empire Magazine recently put together a list of the 50 greatest TV shows of all time. I read the list, and predictably, I agreed with some and disagreed with some. But it did get me thinking about TV in general, so here are a few of my thoughts. Actually, a lot of my thoughts. I got more into this than I thought I would…
During undergrad, I came to appreciate more and more the strengths of the TV show medium. There are a great many benefits derived from the TV format that are lost in a single movie.
Throughout my sophomore, junior, and senior years, I watched through all of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Firefly, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica (up to the current episodes at the time, of course). I also watched the first season of The X-Files, and possibly parts of other shows I’m forgetting.
I never watched a show when it actually aired. Everyone who was in on a particular show would gather in someone’s room, we’d enjoy some beer, and we’d watch the next episode. It was a communal activity, and some of my fondest memories of my undergraduate experience arose from watching TV episodes and watching them afterwards.
Sure, this sort of thing would happen with movies as well, but because TV shows come in episodes, a sort of ritual surrounding a show’s viewing can develop. Also, it is much easier for viewers to understand and identify with characters who are (hopefully) exposed to a much broader range of challenges than a movie’s characters.
This feeds into the argument for TV shows as a much better vehicle for character development than movies. Over the course of even one season of TV, even in 22-minute episodes, there will be more than twice as much screen time for the writers and actors to have the characters grow and develop. This is a challenge unlike any an actor may face in a different medium, and I would argue the the best TV actors are the best actors, period.
So why do movies get the big hype? An Academy Award is (popularly) considered to be the most prestigious acting award. TV actors struggle to break into movies. See, e.g., the poker game conversation at the beginning of Ocean’s Eleven — “Isn’t that hard, going from TV to film?” Topher Grace replies, “Not for me, man.” But no movie actors struggle to get into TV. Most don’t deign to touch it. Can you imagine Brad Pitt (whose character asked Topher Grace about breaking into film in that quote) as the star of a TV show?
Well, there are a few explanation for why this is the case. First and foremost is just inertia. TV shows have not been around as long as movies, and have been a respected medium for even less time, and things like public perception of an the relevance of an entire industry doesn’t just change overnight.
Also, working on a movie requires maybe a few months of work or a bit more depending on your role, but then you’re done. Movies are discrete entities, and if you want to stop making them, you won’t get paid, but it won’t interfere with the canon you’ve already established. TV shows require a much longer commitment, and leaving in the middle of a season will seriously mess up the story line. Maybe actors don’t actually care about the art of what they produce, but I like to think they do. TV just takes more time, and given the choice, most people will choose to have less commitment.
There is also the issue of money. Until very recently (about 3-4 years, I think), the only real money in TV was from advertising. Sure, you could syndicate, but the networks buying syndication rights were making their investment based on expectation of advertising revenue from the show. Movies had box office money, but also the secondary market of home video sales. Before DVD, selling TV episodes after-market like movies wasn’t feasible, because (1) VHS was bulky, and one tape couldn’t hold too many episodes, and (2) you couldn’t do fast seeking on VHS, so finding a particular episode of a show to watch would have been a pain.
With the advent of DVD, most of the disadvantages of having TV episodes in a home-viewable format disappeared, but it took a little bit for the studios to figure this out. Now, there is a booming TV-on-DVD market, and as it picks up, I think we will start to see more and more shows like Lost, Heroes, et al. that have the production value, acting quality, and directing quality normally reserved for feature films.
So, TV is only going to get bigger as a legitimate art form. The episodic format and room for more character development (and more characters, for that matter) make watching a well-made TV series a more appealing prospect than watching a well-made movie, and with TV-on-DVD really taking off, the economics are right too.
There will always be a place for feature films. They’re here to stay, though I can’t predict what their role will be. I don’t think, however, that their status at the top of the heap in terms of artistic and economic quality will last.
And I guess it’s already happening. Given the desert island choice between any TV show of my choice, or any movies of my choice adding up to the same viewing length of the TV show, I would choose Arrested Development any day of the week. Or maybe it would be Battlestar Galactica. Or M*A*S*H… The X-Files? So many good ones…