From Seinfeld to the King of Queens
From The West Wing to Commander in Chief
What happened to intelligently written TV programs???
Have American television viewers really become as stupid as the TV shows would indicate?
Obviously the answer is demographics and advertising dollars, but isn’t it sad.
Thanks,
Dan
Occam’s Razor.
I’m old enough to remember TV in the '50s, and I don’t think our appetite for stupidity has changed since then. At the risk of sounding like an elitist, I don’t think most people have ever looked for much intellectual stimulation on the tube, then or now. The only difference is that there are more channels now.
The one thing that has changed, though, is what passes for “news,” especially local news. It’s embarrassing to watch.
Yes! I long for the days of intellectual gems like Three’s Company, Happy Days, CHiPs, and Dukes of Hazzard.
Ah yes,I miss the days of My Mother the Car and It’s About Time
What about Barney Miller? I think that’s a fairly good, witty TV show. And I agree with the OP. Most sitcoms are disgustingly stupid now, and all about sex and nothing else. I like sex as much as anyone but I want story, too!
Two words: Small Wonder.
A science writer named Steven Johnson wrote a book earlier this year called “Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter” which has as its premise the idea that some television shows, with complex multi-threaded plotlines and several dozen characters actually require more thinking than earlier, less complex, shows. I haven’t read the book, but did read an excerpt in the New York Time Sunday Magazine.
Two and a Half Men never fails to crack me up with its snappy dialog, even if it is mostly sex jokes. “She has more moves in bed than the paint shaker at Sherwin-Williams” Gold!
Joss Whedon started making movies instead.
I disagree with the OP. In fact I think TV shows have become far more intelligent.
I had until recently completely given up on TV for about 3 years. But at a relative’s house I recently watched an episode of House and was impressed enough to look at what else is on offer. I’m glad I did.
The likes of House, Six Feet Under, Coupling*, and The Office* have restored my faith in TV viewing to the point that I am seriously considering getting a TV set again.
I haven’t read it either, but it makes sense. When I watch sitcoms from the fifties and sixties, they seem incredibly slow-paced. Usually there is only one plot thread a show. Jokes are dragged out longer. Think about that scene in I Love Lucy where she drank the alcoholic medicine; it went on for something like eight minutes, long after most people will have gotten sick of the joke. Things also tended to be explained over and over, with characters recapping situations we have already seen. I don’t have a specific example but I know I’ve seen it on Leave it to Beaver and The Patty Duke Show before. Now, most sitcoms have at least two or three plot threads a show. Less time is spent dragging out a single joke or gag. Things are not explained in depth as much; the writers count on the audience getting it the first time. The entire episode is “faster,” and requires more brain processing power than an older show. The multiple plot lines force us to juggle many things in our heads at once which could definitely lead to more complex thought patterns.
Of course, just because it’s complex doesn’t mean it’s better. But I think the average sitcom from today can hold my interest better than the average sitcom from forty years ago. I haven’t watched very many older dramas so I don’t know if it is the same.
To me, problems started when some moron got the idea that people exchanging insults was funny. It can be for established characters playing against type, but insults alone can’t carry a show.
Look, TV always had quality and crap. There were some truly awful shows in every decade, and some great ones, too. People just tend to only remember the good ones (which are the ones that are easier to see as time goes on) and forget the bad ones. (There was some dropoff in the mid-50s as TV went from a medium of the rich to a mass medium, however).
But why is this a general question?
I should note that I have often seen excatly the opposite case made. These TV shows are deliberately designed to cater to a limited intelligence and the limited attention span that goes with it.
Once it was primarily TV shows like Sesame Street and children’s cartoons had multiple disconnected segments and multiple characters, and only such children’s shows changed scene every 3 minutes. That’s because children have a limited attention span. They lack the intelligence to focus on a single subject in-depth and need to have lots of different slices of action to keep them seated.
Gradually adult TV adopted the same style. More and more characters were introduced, and more were used every episode. Camera angle changes became more common. Instead of developing one plot in depth every episode had several consecutive plots.
The writers no longer demanded any attention from the audience. Everything was broken down into bite-sized chunks. If your mind wandered for 5 minutes there was no chance of missing anything critical. The multiple plotlines allow us to miss entire segments of the show with no penalty and the changes of location mean we don’t get bored with all that concentrating.
The reason modern audiences tend to find older shows boring if the same reason children find adult shows boring: it requires more attention than they are able to or have been trained to give.
The trouble with these types of theories is that it’s impossible to prove one way or another. If you want to believ that people are geting dumber then you can use TV shows to support that view, and if you think they are getting smarter you can do the same.
This is mostly about people’s informed opinions, not the definitive answer to a specific General Question, so off to IMHO.
samclem GQ moderator
There is another factor at play here that should be considered. The continued splintering of a finite audience to a continually rising number of channels means that a show should be considered a success even with fewer people watching. However, I don’t think the TV folks are getting that concept. They keep going for higher numbers and pulling the plug on new shows too early.
And if you think about it, there really aren’t that many people watching TV. The number one show, CSI, averages 25 to 30 million viewers for a first run episode. With our population approaching 300 million, that’s only 1 in 10.
Personally, I think there is money to be made creating television for a smaller yet demographically attractive group…but they don’t want to leave any viewing stone unturned. That’s why you have the mind numbing crap on UPN along with quality TV.
Believe it or not, the U.S. version of The Office is pretty damn good too. I was skeptical at first as a fan of the BBC series, but I love the NBC version. Once you get past the pilot episode, which was a straight remake of the BBC series pilot, the NBC Office really came into its own, and it’s different enough so you can enjoy them both.
Heh. My thoughts were more along the lines of Full House, Growing Pains, Small Wonder, and Perfect Stranger.