Tag Archives: TV
Protected: It’s Not Comedy – It’s HBO: The Gradual Sublimation of Comedy as Genre within the HBO Brand
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Filed under Academia
In Support of the Writers Guild of America
Over the past four weeks, my life has been dominated by labour action – on October 15th, the faculty at Acadia University (Which I attend) went on strike. This strike did not end until Wednesday, which meant three and a half weeks out of the classroom. In covering that strike, I maintained a neutral perspective: I felt the profs were striking for sound principles, but that the administration could never simply accept their demands thanks to shrinking enrollment. The landscape of the university was changing, and this crossroads was only inevitable. In the end, our second strike in 4 years was settled, this time with a resolution that should maintain the security of the institution for over a decade.
I mention all of this because I am not neutral about the recent Writer’s strike that has threatened the state of this year’s television season. If Acadia’s administration were facing dwindling enrollment and a grave financial position, Studios are facing a boon in the form of the ability to distribute content over the internet. Hollywood stands at a content-distribution crossroads, and the idea that the internet is “too young” to enter into contract negotiations is ludicrous. New Media is here, there’s no doubt about it, and something needs to be done to respect the work of writers within this medium.
In my time working with fans of CBS’ Jericho, the way many fans caught onto the show was through watching episodes online through the network’s Innertube service. In some cases, it was the only way they watched the show as they were unable to watch the series live thanks to other commitments. The idea that the writers of that episode, the individuals responsible for crafting those words, get nothing for every time someone watches it through this medium makes me wonder whether the service is really assisting the state of television in the long run. Because it should be: there lies amazing potential within the internet, but if it is being realized to the detriment of the writers I believe its value is primarily lost.
Filed under Cultural Learnings
My (And Tim Kring’s) Apologies
My Apology
Over the past four weeks or so, the output on Cultural Learnings has been fairly limited. This has been especially damaging when, over the past week, the WGA strike has essentially provided a whole host of important commentary that any good blogger should be commenting on. However, coincidentally, I was dealing with a strike of my own, assisting my Students’ Union with an information blog during a three and a half week long faculty strike.
As a result, I’m sorry I missed many great episodes of television, many important news stories, and in general just wasn’t around. During that time, I was fortunate enough to finish in 2nd place in Hey! Nielsen’s Best in TV Blog Contest, and I felt incredibly guilty that I wasn’t living up to this fantastic honour bestowed upon me by you, the reader. I plan on trying to live up to that in the near future, so stick with Cultural Learnings in the interim.
Tim Kring’s Apology
However, my apology is not the only one I want to discuss today. Tim Kring, creator of NBC’s slowly fading Heroes, has officially gone on the record that the second season of Heroes has been a wildly miscalculated and redundant exercise (my words, not his). For someone who has defended the show’s various problems (Which aren’t all new, let’s be honest), it is strange to see Kring backing down – the fan response has just been that overwhelmingly negative. And I tend to agree with Alan Sepinwall: just as Kring says this, the show has its best episode of the season. Coincidence? I think not.
Now, I think we shouldn’t give Kring a free ride based on this apology: he’s never been a good writer, and much of last season’s iconic moments came from the mind of Bryan Fuller, not the ex-executive producer of Crossing Jordan. But it’s good to see that he’s at least admitting that his series has fallen off the rails creatively, which shows me that he’s willing to listen to fans. However, adversely, he also considers his vision to be expendable.
Cultural Learnings 