Is TV better than it has even been?

Bungalow Bill

I mean damn: Lost, The Sopranos, Prison Break, Rescue me, 24, The O.C, South Park..

There just seems to be loads of great shows right now and its hard to keep up with all of them, good times..

tvnutz

Bungalow Bill wrote:

I mean damn: Lost, The Sopranos, Prison Break, Rescue me, 24, The O.C, South Park..

There just seems to be loads of great shows right now and its hard to keep up with all of them, good times..

Cut out the OC and perhaps throw in Battlestar Galactica and Veronica Mars

ChityWest

I think it just gets more and more sophisticated in line with its audience.


ps I would add in battlestar galactica too + scrubs

Tristram

ChityWest wrote:

I think it just gets more and more sophisticated in line with its audience.


ps I would add in battlestar galactica too + scrubs

I think that should be corrected to "more sophisticated at recognising market desires and manipulating its audience".I dont believe audiences have become more sophisticated.There viewing competence has increased with regard to recognising formal changes in media in general.As in they are aware that certain phenomenon are supposed to affect them in a certain way and they go along with this.

RobertFoster

But what about your Big Brothers, Survivors, Sky News' etc. etc.?

SoupyNorman

Cant say I'm in full agreement with the OP, Out of the shows mentioned I'd only religiously watch The Sopranos (even though its been off air for a year and a half). Most of the shows now seem to be glorified soap operas ie the likes of the OC, Rescue Me.....nearly anything from the states. Lost is something I never watched from the start so I never bothered with it, its a show I'll buy on DVD in a few years.

The likes of friends and the simpsons have lead the charge in a total decline in the quality of T.V nowadays. Sure there is great comedies eg Arrested Development,Curb your Entusiasm* but Wheres the family comedy gone????.....The likes of the Only fools and horses where all ages are able to watch and laugh.

Then I move onto reality T.V and repeat(sky) digital CHRIST! OP, I bet if you had to watch a few hours of T.V before and after your fav shows I think you'd change your tune.

Maybe not but I would only watch half the amount T.V I watched a few years ago and I LOVED my T.V, but over the years I've noticed it easier and easier to draw myself away from the T.V

byte

And Reality shows seem to be getting worse, with "God or a Girl" on US television...
http://et.tv.yahoo.com/tv/14256/

Pigman II

Talk about sophisticated all you like but I'll take Knight Rider Season 1 over anything new on TV atm* Now *that* was a show!

(*except maybe South Park)

_Kaiser_

bravestarr082 wrote:

Maybe not but I would only watch half the amount T.V I watched a few years ago and I LOVED my T.V, but over the years I've noticed it easier and easier to draw myself away from the T.V

Same here.. I used to watch a lot of TV in the 80s/90s (mostly Sky which I reckon was better in it's pre-digital days tbh) but these days there's maybe half a dozen shows - if even that - that I'd really be interested in watching.

It's because of several different things I reckon:

Repeats
In the old days, Sky Movies for example, was filled with new or recent films. Now it's filled with 10+ year old films that you probably have on DVD for ages already.
It's nice to see some of the shows you grew up with (Knight Rider, The A-Team, Minder etc) but for the most part you just realise how much better they were the first time around.

Availability
In the old days Sky really was the place to get new TV. Now you can get DVD's, torrents etc months before they make their premiere here.

Programming
Maybe it's just me but it seems like far too much of new programming is dumbed down comedy or reality tv rubbish (or as I call it: Life for people with none of their own). I like Sci-fi for example, but since DS9 the only show of note (imho) has been the new Galactica series - and I had to warm up to that.

Elmo

I think American TV has improved. But that has been the way since the early to mid 90's.

On the other hand British TV had gone down hill. There are only a handful of british TV programmes worth watching. Comedy remain excellent from Britian. The Smoking Room and other BBC 3 and C4 comedies are excellent.

But we are left with ITV and BBC reality TV and soap opera most of the time. At least C4 don't hold on to Idea's like BB as ITV do. There are only a handful of good Reality TV series such as The Apprentice and Wife Swap the rest are more celeb this and celeb that rubish.

As for Irish TV I think it is getting better but it is a pity about Fair City and RTE's Jump-on-the-bandwagon style entertainment shows. TG4 have come up with some very inventive shows, while TV3 complain that they don't have enough money for Irish Programming (They earn 50,000,000 each year on advertising, they have nothing to complain about).

But their is still alot of crap out there. Sky TV's crap shows and MTV's we want to be american SH1T i.e. Pimp My Ride UK. Digital TV has a few good channel but the rest should shut up shop IMO.

smashey

I think TV has hit rock bottom. The reason the programmes the OP mentioned stand out is that good programmes are so few and far between these days. The glut of 'reality' programmes is just so annoying. What next? Celebrity fishing?

redspider

Most TV is rubbish, it has been in the past and with more channels on offer these days there is more. The good nuggets are very subjective but they are there and have been in the past, it may just be harder to find them now, and easier to miss them!

But perhaps a more important question for Boards.ie, and it may have been raised elsewhere, is it not embarrassing to have two forums dedicated to Chuck Norris and David Hasselhoff ?!?

I could hardly believe my eyes that those forums actually exist here and people actually post on them. Is Boards.ie not embarrassed by this, and surely it collects "weirdo's" in one spot?

slightly off-topic but relevant to the "is it better now than before?" question ....

redspider

Elmo

But perhaps a more important question for Boards.ie, and it may have been raised elsewhere, is it not embarrassing to have two forums dedicated to Chuck Norris and David Hasselhoff ?!?

I assumed that these where joke forums, scary if they are not.

slightly off-topic but relevant to the "is it better now than before?" question ....

When was the last time either of them had a hit TV show?