The creative crisis of modern television
We have already managed to talk about focus groups and the strife of TV channels - it's time to talk about how all these bad things affect the quality of TV production. And it influences very much!
Due to the “military-vertical” approach to television production (according to which there are supposedly universal methods of working with the audience and ready-made recipes for creating quality products) all the television series are extremely similar to each other. Judge for yourself, now on TV there are 3 types of plots operated without end:
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1) "A company of friends (age: 20+) who work / live / sit back in [put what you see fit]." This (of course) is always a sitcom. Usually, each character has some personal problems, usually they are 4-5 people and women in this team are rarely met. Moreover, these series are the main focus on ... hmm, extreme asociality of these characters. Those. if the series is about fans of video games, then they will most likely sit on allowances and smoke weed instead of developing video games and playing go or tennis. The main problem is that in all these serials is this: they are exploited the theme of "late maturity", while their audience, frankly, has long grown. Here you can throw the series about "30-year-olds living with their parents." I myself love sitcoms very much, but I still dare to call popular samples (which I don’t dare call so as not to provoke a storm in the comments) with a more original structure (like “Episodes”).
2) “A man and a woman together uncover crimes / solve riddles / uncover conspiracies / save people (and everyone is waiting for when they will have an affair)”. "Moonlight Agency", "The X-Files", Lost (well, yes,Sawyer Jack and Kate - readers will probably agree), "Castle", "Bones", "The Mentalist", "Anatomy of Passion", "Private Practice "," Doctor House "... phew! In addition to violating the laws of common sense eugenics (beautiful and intelligent man and woman work together - oh, which one of them will make a couple!), This scheme is simply striking in its banality. Maybe partly, therefore, in recent years, the “reverse wave” of directness has gone somewhere on TV: relations with women are either honest and understandable (“The Wire”, Mad Men) or extremely brutal (“Game of Thrones”, “Deadwood”). However, this does not save a lot of other TV shows.
3) "A cool antihero solves questions and reflexes." It’s more complicated here, because a lot of my favorite TV shows are built on this scheme (“The Sopranos,” for example) - but, despite the abundance of beautiful samples, the genre dangerously approached the crisis line. It seems to me that Jacks Teller, Naki Thompson and, God forgive me, Don Draper follow approximately the same pattern, engaging in self-destruction in each new season. In the end, everything looks like this: here Tony Soprano carries alcohol in the era of “dry law”, now Tony Soprano is engaged in advertising in New York, and here he is the leader of a biker gang. In this regard, "Breaking Bad" made a small revolution - the drug trade there does not at all occupy a central place, and a huge amount of screen time is given not only to the two main characters (well, at the time of the 7th series of the 3rd season - I watched ). The audience appreciated the approach of the authors of the series - the ratings of the story about Walter White are just epic. Here you can still remember "Fart" with Dustin Hoffman as a model of what is new in the series about "cynic, misanthrope and philosopher."
Like the USSR, modern TV channels spend a huge part of their budget on useless things: 80% of viewers all over the world watch TV in the evening and at night. Those. about 70-80% of everything that is shown on TV in the morning and in the afternoon is practically not necessary for anyone. But since the local analogue of the State Planning Committee has a specially designated graph for each time of day, then it certainly needs to be filled out. Wouldn’t it be better to optimize the scheme: to throw out from the ether all unnecessary and free up funds to spend on experimental TV programs. After all, let's be honest, all the positive emotions that the products cause to the viewer are deep in his subconscious and cannot be clearly explained. Wonderful "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Fincher failed in the US box office, but the films of Christopher Nolan (who does not even try to hide "zaum" and "tediousness") collect a huge box office.
The same on TV - David Simon's extremely specific Trimey continues to collect a huge amount of viewers from the screens, while the Dexter, which rolled down to the gray standard nonentity, ingloriously ended its (once so brilliantly begun) screen journey.
Even such a conservative genre as the "police thriller" continues to improve and amaze the audience - Luther, Justified and Ripper Street are excellent evidence of this. Although from the point of view of the oldsters from the TV channels, some CSI or “Law and Order” are the benchmark.
The time of the “triumph of dullness” has passed long ago (if it ever happened at all) and it’s time for the studio bosses to understand this.
I am by no means disgusting (in general, television in recent years pleases us more and more), I just think that in the current TV system the “intermediary” (TV channel) takes on too much - to the detriment of the interests of the audience. It seems to me that modern technical means allow viewers to clearly express their addictions (with the help of existing functions or applications), which TV channels should take into account when making television programs and compiling a broadcasting program - instead of working in the old-fashioned way. In other words, TV should become "more democratic."
Due to the “military-vertical” approach to television production (according to which there are supposedly universal methods of working with the audience and ready-made recipes for creating quality products) all the television series are extremely similar to each other. Judge for yourself, now on TV there are 3 types of plots operated without end:
')
1) "A company of friends (age: 20+) who work / live / sit back in [put what you see fit]." This (of course) is always a sitcom. Usually, each character has some personal problems, usually they are 4-5 people and women in this team are rarely met. Moreover, these series are the main focus on ... hmm, extreme asociality of these characters. Those. if the series is about fans of video games, then they will most likely sit on allowances and smoke weed instead of developing video games and playing go or tennis. The main problem is that in all these serials is this: they are exploited the theme of "late maturity", while their audience, frankly, has long grown. Here you can throw the series about "30-year-olds living with their parents." I myself love sitcoms very much, but I still dare to call popular samples (which I don’t dare call so as not to provoke a storm in the comments) with a more original structure (like “Episodes”).
2) “A man and a woman together uncover crimes / solve riddles / uncover conspiracies / save people (and everyone is waiting for when they will have an affair)”. "Moonlight Agency", "The X-Files", Lost (well, yes,
3) "A cool antihero solves questions and reflexes." It’s more complicated here, because a lot of my favorite TV shows are built on this scheme (“The Sopranos,” for example) - but, despite the abundance of beautiful samples, the genre dangerously approached the crisis line. It seems to me that Jacks Teller, Naki Thompson and, God forgive me, Don Draper follow approximately the same pattern, engaging in self-destruction in each new season. In the end, everything looks like this: here Tony Soprano carries alcohol in the era of “dry law”, now Tony Soprano is engaged in advertising in New York, and here he is the leader of a biker gang. In this regard, "Breaking Bad" made a small revolution - the drug trade there does not at all occupy a central place, and a huge amount of screen time is given not only to the two main characters (well, at the time of the 7th series of the 3rd season - I watched ). The audience appreciated the approach of the authors of the series - the ratings of the story about Walter White are just epic. Here you can still remember "Fart" with Dustin Hoffman as a model of what is new in the series about "cynic, misanthrope and philosopher."
Like the USSR, modern TV channels spend a huge part of their budget on useless things: 80% of viewers all over the world watch TV in the evening and at night. Those. about 70-80% of everything that is shown on TV in the morning and in the afternoon is practically not necessary for anyone. But since the local analogue of the State Planning Committee has a specially designated graph for each time of day, then it certainly needs to be filled out. Wouldn’t it be better to optimize the scheme: to throw out from the ether all unnecessary and free up funds to spend on experimental TV programs. After all, let's be honest, all the positive emotions that the products cause to the viewer are deep in his subconscious and cannot be clearly explained. Wonderful "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Fincher failed in the US box office, but the films of Christopher Nolan (who does not even try to hide "zaum" and "tediousness") collect a huge box office.
The same on TV - David Simon's extremely specific Trimey continues to collect a huge amount of viewers from the screens, while the Dexter, which rolled down to the gray standard nonentity, ingloriously ended its (once so brilliantly begun) screen journey.
Even such a conservative genre as the "police thriller" continues to improve and amaze the audience - Luther, Justified and Ripper Street are excellent evidence of this. Although from the point of view of the oldsters from the TV channels, some CSI or “Law and Order” are the benchmark.
The time of the “triumph of dullness” has passed long ago (if it ever happened at all) and it’s time for the studio bosses to understand this.
I am by no means disgusting (in general, television in recent years pleases us more and more), I just think that in the current TV system the “intermediary” (TV channel) takes on too much - to the detriment of the interests of the audience. It seems to me that modern technical means allow viewers to clearly express their addictions (with the help of existing functions or applications), which TV channels should take into account when making television programs and compiling a broadcasting program - instead of working in the old-fashioned way. In other words, TV should become "more democratic."
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/204650/
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