The Cape

As of lately I have been diving into more TV shows and have been open to try new and different ones.  For some reason I think it is better to start a TV show once it is cancelled, I guess I know that I wont be wrapped up in it forever and I can watch it at any pace I want.  So one of these shows was Community and that helped me find many more shows seeing as they reference almost every other cult TV show.  One of the shows they referenced was called The Cape and it followed a framed police officer who was thought to be dead but was saved by a group of criminal circus performers who trained him to become a superhero to enact revenge on the man who framed him (seriously how could anyone not want to watch that?).
It was brought in as a mid season replacement and eventually the episodes were cut from 13 to 10 after TV ratings for the show went dramatically low.  The last episode (which was only the 10th) was only shown on NBC.com and the last three were never released.  Going into this I thought that there was only 10 episodes and once I got to the last one and realized that the story wasn't even close to being wrapped up I became upset.  I guess that I don't understand why NBC didn't release the finale three episodes online.
This post is more of me just complaining about the fact that NBC couldn't give The Cape fans closure.  I have come to realize that people who work in the TV industry do not care about the people who watch their shows and in turn help them make their money.  I could only imagine what fans of Firefly feel like.

Kentucky Derby

Yesterday was the special day of the year when 8 hours of television is devoted to 2 minutes of a horse race.  I feel that this is only possible with something that is as old as the Kentucky Derby, which just celebrated its 139th annual race.  The only other events that I can think of that draw that much attention and have that much money changing hands in one day would be the World Cup (which is understandable seeing that soccer is the worlds most popular sport) and the Superbowl (which is understandable because Americans love Football).  It is still a little crazy to me that people watch the coverage of the race for several hours prior to the race only to see a few minutes of actual "excitement".  But if watching rich people get drunk and dress like idiots is you're thing who am I to take that away from you.
The winning horse, Orb, seems to have critics in favor of him winning the triple crown; which will be the first time in over 35 years.  Honestly this is the only thing I took away from yesterdays race...well that and Tom Brady winning close to $30,000. (I would react the same way if I had just won that amount of money).

Cult TV

After reading the class discussion board on Cult TV I realized I do not watch too much Cult TV or at least I do not realize that I do.  Lately I have been trying to get into TV shows that are no longer running but it is a long list and I only have so much time (upon that list is The Cape, Bible, I've watched a lot of The Good Guys but I need to finish it).  I guess lately I have been more into extreme sports, documentaries and mixes between the two.  There are a lot of Red Bull documentaries on Netflix that I have been watching and The History Channel has a great selection on there as well.
The only real Cult TV shows I watch currently are Family Guy, Archer (not sure if those are Cult TV) and Community.  I try not to be involved in too many shows at once because it can become overwhelming.  A lot of my friends are trying to get me into Game of Thrones and Spartacus so once I have time I will have to catch up on those shows as well.

Damn good writing

This week our class is talking about audience and how a TV show will sell an audience to a marketer rather than the other way around.  It got me thinking about how a TV show then sets up an audience and holds onto that audience for the length of the show and it all comes down to how the show is written.  One could say that acting has a lot to do with it but the writing tells the actor what to do.
I started thinking about this while I was watching NBC's show Community.  For the three years that it has been on (they just started their fourth season after multiple delays) it has gathered a very strong cult following and it can be directly contributed to the writing in the show.  Community is unlike any other show out there due to the fact of where the jokes come from: it relies heavily on pop-culture humor and referencing to other TV shows and movies.  The shows references are so deeply rooted that the writing staff along with the shows creator must have an encyclopedia of knowledge of old TV shows and movies along with current running TV shows and recently released movies.  Alongside the referencing of other media the show is amazing at referencing itself; it has been classified as having a "meta-humor" genre as in it continues to bring back past subjects used in the show and reuse them while still being subtle and original.  This unique style of writing has made this show very popular among a particular group of people who appreciate a well written show.  Community has even faced cancellation multiple times but due to the strong willed community of fans who lobbied to have the show saved, Community is still making new shows and audiences laugh on a weekly basis.

Soap Operas...I have so much to learn

I never knew the origins of soap operas which is probably why I never took them very seriously.  To say that they are marketed towards women is not sexist considering they were marketed towards women when they first came out.  Women were home during the day so these radio and TV shows came out with stories that would drag out over long periods of time.  This was certain companies methods to sell products to this demographic (Proctor and Gamble used to fund a soap so they could get advertisements which is where the term soap opera came from) and keep these women coming back for more on a daily to weekly to monthly and some soaps have been running for decades.
Now that more women are out of the house and society has become less patriarchal it wouldn't surprise me to see these shows going off the air.  It is hard to imagine that a show that has been running for 40 years to just stop running but everything must come to an end.  As of right now they still have viewers and are still generating money otherwise they wouldn't be running the show anymore.

Hulu Plus

So I started using Hulu Plus since starting this class and for the most part I like it.  There is one catch that I did not know about prior to signing up; I wasn't aware that there were still commercial breaks.  It is the same price per month than Netflix, granted Netflix is mostly movies but there are still are TV shows on Netflix and there are no commercial breaks.  Granted there are only three commercials for a half hour show and they are only 15 to 30 seconds long but still what the hell?  At least when I watch regular TV I can change the channel and enjoy 2 to 3 minutes of something else while commercials plague the show I am watching.  There is one good thing that has come out of these Hulu Plus commercials: I now never want to stay in Embassy Suites.

TV is here to stay

After reading the first few pages of SITS I began thinking about when I thought TV would become obsolete.  I was convinced that the Internet would emerge and take control of that market because of the growing popularity of the Internet and how much the Internet could do that cable TV couldn't.  Gray and Lotz refer to Cable TV as a new media where I look at it as an old media that has adapted to a new generation of media.  By expanding the amount in on demand items and giving discount rates to households that pay for TV, Internet and phone, Cable TV has been able to keep up with programs like Netflix and Hulu Plus.  Television is too old of an industry to just be killed by a growing phenomena.