There is no program on television that doesn’t, to one degree or another. [ETA: Usually a stronger one than most viewers are willing to recognize.] The only slight exception is material that is produced as commodity (instead of content) and sold on the ad-free (or at least ad-uninterrupted) channels.
If it’s ad-supported, it’s marketing-driven, no matter how many Emmys it collects.
Yes, but it’s usually a bit more subtle. There’s a difference between a show that has some low-key product placement and runs ads targeted at its expected audience, and a show that is running sponsored contests, shoehorning in music just to sell soundtracks, and releasing a slew of quick-turn facebook and mobile apps.
AMC didn’t have NyQuil sponsor a “Make Your Own Meth” contest for Breaking Bad, or a “meth yourself” app for mobile devices that would doctor photos to make the subject look like a meth head.
I get that all ad-supported shows are driven by marketing in some way or another, but it’s the extreme degree to which Walking Dead is being written by the marketing team that I find distasteful.
When we first met Tyreese’s group, they were running the the forest. A white female member of their group was bitten, and was killed upon turning, and buried at the prison. This was Donna, wife of Allen and mother of Ben, the other two members of the Tyreese/Sasha group.
I’m actually surprised there’s not more product placement on the show. Whenever they visit an abanded supermarket/pharmacy/gas station/etc it’s a generic mom & pop. We never get a close look at any of the labels on food or liquor they find.
I’d disagree. The issue goes beyond product placement and promotion of the show. But no need to hijack the show discussion down that road.
All I can say is that I’m thrilled to throw $2 an ep at Vudu to watch shows without a single second of ads of any kind, not even blurbs for Talking Dead or how wonderful AMC is. Why anyone throws (effectively) that much or more at cable to be pounded silly by ads, even in the on-demand mode, mystifies me.
We’ve had other discussions on this recently. The ad content, placement, timing and randomness mean that you get significant exposure even while zipping… and with a DVR, you’re paying additional for the privilege.* No different from things like on-demand replay.
*Not to mention that you’re paying around 50% more in electrical costs to keep the DVR box juiced, over a non-recording cable box. It’s a significant amount.
(I assembled a meticulously edited set of all five *Babylon 5 *seasons on VHS, but we did watch it twice through before the DVDs came out, and then I gave the set to a penurious fan who was delighted to have them…)
That doesn’t take an excess of fan-wanking -
[ul]
[li]choke her out[/li][li]hog-tie and gag her[/li][li]haul her back to the trunk[/li][li]No one is searching his truck, she can be on the floor on the passenger side[/li][li]The torture chamber is in some big, presumably unoccupied building. Not to hard to believe it has a garage door and that it is where the Gov stores his private truck.[/li][/ul]
According to Rolling Stone, 27 characters will die in the season finale. Assuming most of those will be very minor characters that still leaves a good chunk of the major cast. Should we start a death pool?
Shootout between the prison and Durwood or Morningwood or Elderberry or whatever the town is named. How unexpected.
Dead will include Herschel, Carol, Merle, Philip/Governor, Santiago (Governor’s second), the annoying white guy who came with Tyrese, Tyrese’s woman, and 20 no-name townspeople. Oh, and Lori.
The geek will end up in charge of the town, with Tyrese as his lieutenant, probably after being the one to kill the Governor.
No surprise really, given that the ending to the Woodbury arc in the books was such a slaughter. Still, there are enough differences between the books and the show to surprise us.