TV SHOWS AND TRUST

As I age I become more hesitant to watch anything new that comes on my television. Work, love, family; these are just a few real-life factors that force us all to have less time for TV as we get older.

But there's another factor at play here: TRUST. Years and years of withering trust in the shows I watch to give an ending to building story-lines has made me very unwilling to give a new show a chance. Why should I waste my time on anything if they're not going to finish the story?

I don't stand alone here. There's not a single person out there who hasn't had this happen to them on multiple occasions. It usually happens in the form of struggling shows film a huge, game-changing finale, complete with cliffhanger ending, all in the hopes of drawing enough interest to save said show. Then the show gets cancelled. This is infuriating, but usually some time passes, the weather heats up, trips to the beach are taken and I've quickly forgotten about it.

Problem is, that's all fine and dandy the first few times it happens, but sooner or later, trust in the television industry to do right by me and all of the people who invested their time falls apart completely.

For some reason, when a show is cancelled a few episodes in, it feels even worse. Maybe it's because there's no summer to wash away the hurt, I don't know, but it feels worse nonetheless. Recently, a coworker invested her time in Zero Hour, and I begrudgingly invested my time in Do No Harm. Both of these shows were cancelled after only a couple of episodes. We can quickly and easily look back at the two, three hours we wasted and think of all the things we could've done instead, or all the other shows we could've put our time into instead. I still have four episodes of Shameless to catch up on. Damn, wish I would've done that instead.

I believe all of this is causing anger amongst the fans of television, and I'm pretty sure this is playing a role into lower-than-expected ratings for some of the network's biggest debuts. The networks were expecting big things from the previously mentioned Zero Hour and Do No Harm as well as the earlier debuts of 666 Park Avenue and Last Resort. All of them failed. But even in failure, at least 10 to 20 million different people invested some of their time in at least one of these shows, and stuck with them past their first and second episodes. That adds up to a lot of pissed off people who want to know what happens next.

To solve this problem, I propose that television networks do the following: first, if a show has failed in a prime spot in your schedule, burn off the remaining episodes on Saturday instead of four to six months later in the summer. Second, if a show gets cancelled without a chance to wrap up story-lines, allow the show to film a two-hour TV movie to please the fans and give them some closure. There is no third. This is simply about building that trust back, and if these two steps are followed, the fans will again have trust that their time won't be wasted because the stories they decide to invest in will be guaranteed to have an ending.

New Year's Resolution

As a fan of horror movies, friends and acquaintances are often recommending titles they enjoyed. About a month ago, V/H/S came highly recommended by an extremely reliable source. I've been saving the viewing of it for just the right moment. Two days ago that moment came.

And now for my New Year's resolution: for one year, I will do absolutely everything in my power to avoid any movie that includes "found footage," is filmed in a "shaky cam" style, and all films where one of the characters in the movie is filming the footage.

We can all trace the scourge of this style back to Blair Witch and the phenomenon that followed. Studios fell in love with the low cost of making these movies and people flocked to see them (and even when they didn't, the low cost of making the film was quickly made back).

Mind you, not all of these films were bad. Project X, Chronicle, Cloverfield, Quarantine and more than a few others were enjoyed by me. But here's the kicker: all of those films, and all films made in this style would've been better if not made in this style.

I'm sick of the character running away and being forced to endure the picture bouncing around ferociously for way too long. I'm tired of the moment when the cameraman inevitably drops the camera and we're forced to see a sideways shot of nothing.

In case you haven't guessed by now, V/H/S sucked. It wasn't the worst movie of this genre though, that belongs to a movie so bad, I can't even remember the name of it. But here's the rundown of that movie. The shaky cam in this movie was the recorder mounded on a police car. An hour and a half of a police cruiser driving around on woodsy roads. That's it. There was one moment, after about an hour and fifteen minutes of fast forwarding when the police vehicle stopped, the policeman got out to investigate some sort of monster or alien. All action took place off-screen, and I was rewarded for my patience with nothing. 

V/H/S was the straw that broke the camels back. It's the movie that made me finally want to stand up and say "Enough. No more found footage! No more shaky cam! No more!"   

Stumbling To The Alter

One of my favorite teachers ever taught me (and the rest of the class) that the best comedy comes from the "stumble to the alter" phase of a person's life. He meant that other than "family" sitcoms, the best time for comedy in a person's life is the time when they're old enough to potentially get married to the time that they're actually married.

This is why so many sitcoms have died or ended once it's "single" characters get married. This is why so many sitcoms have kept their characters in a perpetual state of immaturity.

In an ensemble sitcom, you can of course have one married couple, but as the other characters begin to pair off, the sitcom will sooner rather than later come to an end.

This is the looming fear of How I Met Your Mother. The whole premise of the show is leading up to the moment when Ted gets married. It can happen at any time. Now, on top of that, we have Robin and Barney paring off. Soon, the whole cast will be married.

Also, when characters in a sitcom begin to pair off, usually the "drama" starts to increase and the "comedy" starts to decrease. This happened to Friends. It's happening to HIMYM. However, it never happened with Seinfeld. Seinfeld was aware of where the comedy came from. He knew about the "stumble to the alter." He never messed with it.

The 2012 winter finale of HIMYM was really good. Despite Robin and Barney being officially paired off, despite the ramped up drama. I don't know why, but I really feel like HIMYM might just be able to break the mold and still be good after all their characters are married. With it's continued quality use of flashbacks we can always get a good dose of Barney running a ridiculous scam from his playbook, or Ted getting into ridiculous circumstances.

HIMYM has had its ups and downs as its characters have aged. There were times when I was really pissed off at the show and on the verge of giving up on it (hello three episode arc about Marshall's father dying), and yes it was in its prime during season 2 and 3 and hasn't been as consistently funny since. But dammit if I wasn't sold on the 2012 winter finale. I have hope that this show can do what no other similar sitcom has ever been able to pull off.