What is wrong with American TV shows?

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unfortunately all the news stations....

 

American TV gave us The Wire, which is, without any exaggeration, the greatest TV show of all time.

Even Alan Moore thinks so.

Incidentally, I think The Wire is evidence that Deadwood's cancellation had something to do with Milch. I mean, everything I know about Simon leads to believe he's an enormous douchebag. An exceptionally talented douchebag, but a douchebag and a disagreeable prick all the same. And he managed to get a full five seasons of his show made.

 

I have to agree. Lowest common denominator is seriously keeping us down. There have been plenty of intelligent show, but they very rarely last more than one or two seasons. Among other things, attention spans are often too short to have to wade through the continuity of a show that's been running for 4-5 years, so new viewers are very uncommon - hence episodic, formulaic shows like House (which is a fine show, just not very deep) or CSI, Law and Order, are constantly aired because anyone can jump in in the middle of the season and figure out what's going on just fine.

Extraordinarily poor marketing helps to ruin the few good shows as well. Fox refused to air the pilot for Firefly, and then aired all the episodes out of order. ****ing travesty.

 

The shows with long-term story arcs are stronger because of it, artistically speaking, but weaker commercially. I wouldn't start reading a series of novels with book three or four? So why would I expect people to start watching 'a novel for television' (JMS' description of Babylon 5, paraphrased) two-thirds of the way through?

Therefore it's not fair to blame attention spans for those shows' difficulty attracting new viewers.

 

Then why making them if you're going to sabotage any chance of success? If you make certain that people can't see a show in sequence how can you expect that show to gather a fanbase?

It almost looks like it is done on purpose.

The only thing that is possibly worse is cancelling acclaimed shows like Rome or Deadwood after only 2 or 3 seasons. What is the point really?

Or are we supposed to watch The Bold and the Beautiful or The Young and the Restless? Truth be told, if I had to watch soap, I'd rather watch Eastenders , Coronation Street or even Monarch of the Glen.

 

Monk and Breaking Bad are awesome.

 

Monk is very comical. I like it. I really enjoy alot of FX's shows, like Rescue Me, Sons of Anarchy, etc... they are almost cutting edge enough to be HBO series. Deadwood was excellent. Sopranos faded, but started off really good, but the mafia thing has been used way too often over the last 30 years. Rome was another good one. Six feet under was also entertaining. Alot of the primtime shows on the ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox channels are transparent. How many Law & Order episode can they really make and keep you interested? Same for the three CSI series. I tried watching Merlin, but that was just terrible.

 

At least Six Feet Under wasn't rushed and reached its natural end. Given the average length of most shows, 5 seasons isn't bad.

 

The Shield and Entourage are my current American favorites. I liked the first seasons of Dexter & Six Feet Under, but both started to lose their grip eventually. HBO's Deadwood & Band of Brothers were both excellent. For some weird reason I have watched only 2 or 3 episodes of Sopranos, although there's nothing wrong with it.

I hate Monk, it's not funny or exciting and it's so overacted . Most sitcoms are also awful.

 

I found Band of Brothers to be the best series I have ever watched. Great directing and acting.

 

TV in america is a business. Networks invest money in a TV show that they will get back with selling advertisement on air. The more people who watch a show, the more money they will get from advertisement sale. It's simple math. If the show doesn't have the projected ratings, then they lose money from advertisement and will replace the show. It's not about quality at all.

Now, some networks are better then others. Showtime and HBO are at the top. They produce quality shows (unlike many networks) and are not afraid with novelty ideas. On the other hand, they're able to get the ratings they go for, so for them, it's about going to quality to have the best ratings. Others, like ABC, are not afraid (at all!) to pull the plug on shows that don't do good. For example, Daybreak was a series a couple of years ago which was a cross bread between a cop/whodunnit drama and Groundhog day. It was not bad, but since it didn't attract the audience it was intended to, they pulled it mid season (though it had already been filmed completly) to replace it with the horrible Lopez sitcom (one of the worst sitcoms of all time). And you can add to the list shows like The Nine, Traveler, Invasion, etc...

Unfortunately, some TV networks in Québec (*cough* TVA *cough cough*) are starting to be like ABC... ugh...

@Kullervo : I don't agree. Dexter's second and third seasons were as good if not better than the original. And you're the first person I heard saying othewrwise.

@Blades : I am also a huge fan of Band of Brothers. However, in this particular context, it doesn't fit because it was a mini-series, not an ongoing series (meaning there's a definite end and the series is usually shorter in length). And the weight of Spielberg and Tom Hanks would have been enough to keep the series on air, should it have failed miserably in ratings.

 

Dexter lost his edge when he became a family man . I haven't seen the third season, so I can't judge that yet.

The Pacific (Band of Brothers spin-off ) has huge boots to fill. It can't be any better than the original, but I have high hopes.

Oh, I almost forgot: anyone remember Oz?

 

Am I seriously the only one on this board who has seen The Wire? None of you are my friends any longer, in that case.

Generation Kill > BoB

 

Band of Brothers was great. BTW, I stumbled across another old show that was cancelled simply because it came out in the wrong period, I guess. The show was Haunted, in the psychic-detective genre (back when ghosts were vengeful, dangerous dead people and not misunderstood or lost souls). I like shows that make me think (and some of the cases here were pretty interesting), and this show had free scares to go with it.