Are TV shows starting to become better than a lot of movies?

TV's easier too.  I don't have to go anywhere.  There are plenty of easy channels for finding the shows I want to watch.  There's less of a time commitment per viewing, yet more of a long-term reward.  Not that I'd completely give up the theatrical experience, but if for some reason I had to, I'd feel more than compensated by the various TV shows I watch.

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Originally Posted by Upgrayedd 

There was a recent interview with Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter where he said people were saying "Boardwalk Empire could be the beginning of the blur between television and cinema, because the production values are so high and the storyteling is so compelling". I have to agree. Even up to a few years ago I would have said while TV is getting better there's no way that you can compare TV to movies. But I'm starting to change my mind. Now you have big name actors crossing over to TV. Look at HBO's new series Luck. Dustin freakin' Hoffman is now on TV. Even big name directors/producers are getting involved. Scorsese directed the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire and continues to produce the show along with Mark Wahlberg. Spielberg has been producing certain TV shows for years now and is producing even more right now. I used to think if I saw a movie star go from movies to TV that it was a step down. But not anymore. Plus the production and acting is so good, if you watch just one episode of Boardwalk Empire without knowing it's a TV series you would think you're watching a movie. The writing, the acting, the production is that good. It's not just HBO but even Sons of Anarchy on FX or Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead on AMC. You compare great TV shows to most of the crap that comes out at the show nowadays and I would say TV is about equal to movies.  

This message brought to you by 2006.

I was gonna say 2004, myself.

I remember this argument being advanced in the mid-90s, which was another very strong era for TV contrasted with a particularly weak one for movies. I think the difference now is that, yes, TV has become hard to distinguish from movies, production-wise. Every so often I'll hear someone deride a movie for looking like a TV show and I'll be a little bewildered, because there are so many amazing-looking TV shows right now.

I was reading a blogger writing about Doctor Who a while back, and he made the claim that until recently British TV had been thought of more as a parallel to theater than film, because most shows were filmed live against theatrical backdrops. He claimed American TV had aspired to movie-dom from much earlier, but you can really see the theatrical tradition lingering on TV even now, most notably with 3-camera sitcoms. But even as recently as the 90s there was a level of "staginess" in all but the most ambitious TV shows. Looking at SF, I recently watched Babylon 5 for the first time, and it's definitely got that sense of a stage--simple backdrops, static cameras, etc. I also find it interesting that with older SF there was a point in which we could swallow a dude in a wig as an "alien", not because we were fooled by the seamless illusion, but because we were willing to do some of the work ourselves. We'd accept a symbol as the real thing, rather than expect special effects, because we understood the constraints of the medium--but that also ties into theater. It's only quite recently that TV SF has gone in for movie-style full-immersion; I think X-Files pushed things over the edge, then Battlestar Galactica finished it off. You couldn't do an old-school Star Trek style show any more. Hell, you almost never get anyone attempting to portray aliens on TV anymore, and it's obviously because of this fear of "bumpy foreheads".

Terra Nova.

Your argument is invalid.

What's really striking is the gulf of quality between many of the great shows of recent years & most of the Best Picture winners of the past decade. Slumdog Millionaire, Crash, King's Speech, Million Dollar Baby, Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, The Hurt Locker, etc. All good, to be sure, but none can touch Sherlock Holmes, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Six Feet Under, BSG, Justified, or The Shield at their best. Not even close. Hell, even Band Of Brothers took a shit on the revelatory Saving Private Ryan.

TV hasn't been the slums for a long, long time.   In fact, I think it has in many ways eclipsed the movies especially in terms of storytelling.  For one, lower budgets means more creative freedom but also there's the fact that show runners just have more time to craft a story or delve into some character development.    I've never seen The Wire, but from what I've heard, it has really used the advantages of storytelling on TV to its fullest.   For the viewer, that kind of novelistic approach is richer and more rewarding.

The most exciting thing that's happened in terms of TV in recent years has been "Game of Thrones" .     I think the success of that show might lead to other hard to adapt books finding a home on TV.   The long form format that TV allows seems perfect for adaptation of novels no matter how complex they are.

Another area that TV has excelled in the last 10 years has been comedy.   Shows like Arrested Development and Parks and Rec are just destroying their big screen counterparts in laughs.   Not even close.

2002 is the year TV officially surpassed theatrical film in terms of quality. At that point, The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Shield and The West Wing were all on the air. In the time since, TV has widened the gap considerably.

EDIT: And The Wire!

TV will always be TV and cinema will always be cinema. Just because one (serialized storytelling, flat visuals) can sometimes imitate the other (big stars, mature content) doesn't mean that one will suddenly leapfrog the other.

For one, television is still much more reliant on the bean counters. Most shows are predicated on the stop-start notion of the coming commercial breaks, causing the development of false conflict and fracturing the world that has been created. And there's the issue of compatibility - networks remain concerned about shows that can fit into a programming block, moreso than a good show. Every year there are a couple of interesting programs that are forced to combine with obviously lesser shows, creating no spillover whatsoever. NBC viewers who like "30 Rock" aren't going to immediately leap to "Prime Suspect USA" simply because of a timeslot comparison.

Moreover, the false "golden age" of television is myth, perpetuated by the growth of the television industry as a whole. As much as people will cheer for "Mad Men," it still brings in a tiny fraction of the viewers of your least favorite piece of shit reality show. Even after the post-"Lost," post-"24" age of serialized storytelling, what remains the biggest show on television? Talent showcases like "American Idol." Procedurals like "CSI." Laugh track sitcoms.

Television is a more collaborative industry, and while there may be geniuses working within the ranks, there are too many people who can't afford to take a chance on the medium's Terrence Malick, or television's Steven Spielberg, whomever that might be. And so that won't happen, and while the negative influence of television may crop up in movies from time to time (caged directors with no vision, movies-by-committee), cinema will never lose that big screen luster.

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Moreover, the false "golden age" of television is myth, perpetuated by the growth of the television industry as a whole. As much as people will cheer for "Mad Men," it still brings in a tiny fraction of the viewers of your least favorite piece of shit reality show. Even after the post-"Lost," post-"24" age of serialized storytelling, what remains the biggest show on television? Talent showcases like "American Idol." Procedurals like "CSI." Laugh track sitcoms.

Wait, are we arguing about which is more successful and reaches the most eyes ... or which is better? Two different arguments. TV wins the second one for sure.

The big thing is that directors are figuring out how to do action/sci fi pieces on TV without a massive budget.

There a reason why 70's BSG has like three special effect shots that get shown over and over again vs 00's BSG.

It used to be you needed a big budget to do these sequences now it seems like either the TV budget has grown so these sequences can work or they are cheaper to do.

I will say this: The one big advantage movies have and will always have is the ability to plan and execute a complete and satisfying story before the film is ever released. With the nature of TV being that the creatives behind most shows have no idea if or when their show will end, even great shows can fall into the trap of running too long (The X-Files) or not sticking the landing (Lost). That's a problem only TV has. But when those traps are avoided ... man, oh, man ... there's nothing better than a TV series that stays brilliant from start to finish.

And just for fun:

TV did Buffy better than the movies could do Buffy.

TV is doing Sherlock better than Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. could Sherlock.

TV is doing Elmore Leonard right now better than Quentin Fucking Tarantino could do Elmore Leonard.

See where this is going?

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Originally Posted by zak chase 

TV is doing Elmore Leonard right now better than Quentin Fucking Tarantino could do Elmore Leonard.

Hold up there, cowboy.

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Originally Posted by zak chase 

I will say this: The one big advantage movies have and will always have is the ability to plan and execute a complete and satisfying story before the film is ever released. With the nature of TV being that the creatives behind most shows have no idea if or when their show will end, even great shows can fall into the trap of running too long (The X-Files) or not sticking the landing (Lost). That's a problem only TV has. But when those traps are avoided ... man, oh, man ... there's nothing better than a TV series that stays brilliant from start to finish.

I beg to differ.  It seems as if British television is planned very well with short seasons, contained story arcs and planned outcomes.  Unless they just happen to cancel an inordinate amount of shows perhaps the problem is the 20+ episode season and the traditional Fall new show scheduling popular here in the states.

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Hold up there, cowboy.

'Tis true!

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Originally Posted by TzuDohNihm 

 

I beg to differ.  It seems as if British television is planned very well with short seasons, contained story arcs and planned outcomes.  Unless they just happen to cancel an inordinate amount of shows perhaps the problem is the 20+ episode season and the traditional Fall new show scheduling popular here in the states.

Yeah, all true. And the British system is probably better for that reason. But so much more programming is produced in the states.

I keep saying that BBC's Sherlock should have a limited run in theaters.  I would love to see that with an audience.

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Moreover, the false "golden age" of television is myth, perpetuated by the growth of the television industry as a whole. As much as people will cheer for "Mad Men," it still brings in a tiny fraction of the viewers of your least favorite piece of shit reality show. Even after the post-"Lost," post-"24" age of serialized storytelling, what remains the biggest show on television? Talent showcases like "American Idol." Procedurals like "CSI." Laugh track sitcoms.

 

Television is a more collaborative industry, and while there may be geniuses working within the ranks, there are too many people who can't afford to take a chance on the medium's Terrence Malick, or television's Steven Spielberg, whomever that might be. And so that won't happen, and while the negative influence of television may crop up in movies from time to time (caged directors with no vision, movies-by-committee), cinema will never lose that big screen luster.

This is a really flawed argument. Do "American Idol" and "CSI" get a lot more viewers than "Mad Men"? Sure they do, but 3 of the top 4 grossing movies last year were Transformers, PoTC and Twilight. It's not like that's just a problem in TV.

The difference now, what makes this a golden age of TV, is that cable networks like AMC and FX are giving opportunities to talented creators with a vision. Your statement that "there are too many people who can't afford to take a chance on the medium's Terrence Malick, or television's Steven Spielberg, whomever that might be" would've been true maybe a decade ago. Now, though, shows like "Mad Men", "Breaking Bad" and "Louie" exist because those networks are willing to live with shows that don't pull in massive viewerships, as long as they're quality, and they're willing to give the showrunners unprecedented control over their shows.

There is a strong argument for the overall quality of TV's output compared to mainstream Hollywood right now, sure. But there are fundamental differences that will always seperate the formats.

A TV show, no matter the quality or pedigree of the artists involved, is inevitably a machine that has to work to string you along, keep you hooked and watching, and is obligated to fill a certain amount of space. This results in structural weaknesses, like bad subplots and other TV writing cliches.

Even the best shows, like Friday Night Lights, will always have a questionable subplot or two hanging around. Characters need something to keep them busy to fill up that time, and that isn't always something interesting. But we forgive it, because in a few minutes we'll be back to one of the better plotlines, and it'll probably get wrapped up in a few episodes anyways.

Breaking Bad, one of my favorites of the past few years, is far from innocent in this. They use the dreaded "wife and kids" plotline that seems to afflict almost every single TV drama with a badass male lead. Sure, the family in BB aren't nearly as bad as on many other shows, but can you honestly say any of the stuff with them is the show at it's best? That you aren't going somewhere in the back of your mind "Boy, I wish they'd get away from this bullshit and go back to Walter."?

I know that's a fact of life, that people have families. I love my family, too. But almost every single one of these drama shows uses them as an annoyance and a distraction, and then an artificial way to raise the stakes when they are threatened. Look to "The Shield" too, for the exact same thing. And early seasons of "24", of course. Basically any show with a badass male lead. I use this family example because it makes up a big part of the structural weaknesses of our favorite shows of the TV quality surge of the 2000's.

Yes, I know people in movies have families too, I was just trying to point out one of the biggest TV writing cliches dragging the format down. There are plenty of other TV writing cliches, like stalling for time. Lost made an art form out of stalling for time. I'd say the show's primary strength (besides the directors and actors that somehow managed to keep the thing interesting for so long) is the way it derived so much drama, comedy, action, suspense, and everything else, from endlessly bullshitting the audience and stringing them along. And you felt like the characters were stuck there with you, waiting...and waiting...and waiting for the answers, when the answers weren't the point at all. This is obviously something that would not work in a movie.

More often that not though, shows are really bad at stalling for time. You'll get an episode where someone (Don't want to talk directly about BB's plotline for those who haven't seen it) is just sitting around in a bed for a stretch of a few episodes. I found myself thinking "Wow, this really really sucks. I know the show is going to pull out something amazing in a few episodes, but for now, that fast forward button is looking real tempting."

Anyways, to movies. They get to (when they are competently written) tell a concentrated story, with a beginning, middle, and end. No need to string things along, no need to bullshit, no need to fill up 10-20 hours until the grand finale. A concentrated dose of great filmmaking is, in my estimation, equal to the mental impact of an entire season of even the greatest show. In a movie, you can throw it all in to create single unforgettable images and scenes, that burn into the viewer's mind.

For movie writing, without the time restriction of weekly production deadlines, you can craft the script into whatever it needs to be, instead of whatever's good enough to fill 42 minutes and keep people hooked til' next week. You aren't forced to spread out the good stuff.

Unlike most Chewers, I've got to agree with this.  As fantastic as "Justified" is though, it's not as good as Soderbergh's "Out of Site".  "Get Shorty" is a pretty solid adaptation as well, so it's not like Leonard hasn't been well represented in movies.

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Originally Posted by Kyle Reese 

Breaking Bad, one of my favorites of the past few years, is far from innocent in this. They use the dreaded "wife and kids" plotline that seems to afflict almost every single TV drama with a badass male lead. Sure, the family in BB aren't nearly as bad as on many other shows, but can you honestly say any of the stuff with them is the show at it's best? That you aren't going somewhere in the back of your mind "Boy, I wish they'd get away from this bullshit and go back to Walter."?

 

Walter wouldn't be interesting if he was just a badass gangster who never took a breath from slaughtering his rivals.

I'm not trying to be rude or mean, Kyle, but that analysis of Breaking Bad is damn near hopelessly inept. 

Wasn't trying to analyze the whole show, it's just one example of the family subplot thing. Of course the show needs other stuff in it besides Walter being a badass. I'm not looking to discuss that show in particular in this thread too much, though. I'd rather talk about the other points.

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Originally Posted by Kyle Reese 

I'm not looking to discuss that show in particular in this thread too much, though. I'd rather talk about the other points.

If we did, movies wouldn't stand a chance!

It would be just as inept applied to any other show, though.  Look, it's not like no one's ever had the idea to do a crime show without all the "boring" domestic material.  The reason why they all end up doing it to some extent or another is that you very quickly realize that the exciting stuff gets boring around the second hour if there is not a recognizable ground state for things to escalate from or a source for different types of conflict. 

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Originally Posted by SomethingClever 

This is a really flawed argument. Do "American Idol" and "CSI" get a lot more viewers than "Mad Men"? Sure they do, but 3 of the top 4 grossing movies last year were Transformers, PoTC and Twilight. It's not like that's just a problem in TV.

 

The difference now, what makes this a golden age of TV, is that cable networks like AMC and FX are giving opportunities to talented creators with a vision. Your statement that "there are too many people who can't afford to take a chance on the medium's Terrence Malick, or television's Steven Spielberg, whomever that might be" would've been true maybe a decade ago. Now, though, shows like "Mad Men", "Breaking Bad" and "Louie" exist because those networks are willing to live with shows that don't pull in massive viewerships, as long as they're quality, and they're willing to give the showrunners unprecedented control over their shows.

Louie, I'll give you. He's doing some pretty interesting things with the medium.

But Zach Galligan and Matthew Weiner? Solid showrunners, and they've created great shows. But they haven't established the auterist qualities of a Spielberg, or a Malick. Or, for comparison's sake, Milch, who swung and whiffed hard with the unforgettable and cinematic "John From Cincinatti," which felt more like a film-sized flop than a TV-centric one.

And my argument before in regards to the most popular shows being forgettable offal is that the law of averages are getting some of the more quality shows on the air. But they're not transforming the medium the way a great film can. The vision of something like "Deadwood" is never going to do anything for the people who work at CBS to change their ways. Whereas, films, even financial failures, tend to resonate industry-wide, and change filmmakers' approaches. They're more influential, more meaningful. TV, as good as it can be, is still TV.

I am waiting for a bigger budgeted "Masters Of Horror" type approach to a show, where we get a series with a different visual aesthetic and tonal variation from episode to episode. That's when we'll know TV has threatened movies. Of course, that's not financially feasible, which is why we have legions of Clark Johnson's merely holding down the fort, slaves to the requests of showrunners with too much on their plate, and a backlog of episodes they have to emulate.

Someone's got Gremlins on the brain.

I dunno, the idea that a single show has to showcase that it's capable of everything every movie ever has been capable of in order for TV to equal movies seems pretty ridiculous to me.  And the idea that movies are better because one of them can have a bigger impact across the industry than a single show(episode?) can strikes me as an extremely arbitrary way to judge quality.  And hardly indisputable, as Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, or The Sopranos easily trump any given Malick film's impact on the cultural/industry landscape.

This "argument" always feels weird to me, though, because we're not ultimately talking about different art forms.  You write a script, you film actors performing it, and the product exists regardless of the size of the screen it's projected on, and whether we first see it in our homes doesn't really have a bearing on its overall quality.   Did people sit around 100 years ago arguing that 5 act plays were inherently better than 3 act plays?  It's not even arguing Coke vs Pepsi, it's Coke in a bottle vs Coke from a fountain. 

Film has always offered a larger scope, better production values, better actors, and greater narrative and thematic range.  But that's no longer necessarily the case (thank you HBO), and there's no reason to think the medium won't continue to mature.  What ultimately differentiates the two is that one is long form storytelling and the other is short form.  Thus there will always be those stories and experiments that are only possible as a film - and more yet that demand to be seen in a theater - and those that are only possible as a long-form narrative. 

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Louie, I'll give you. He's doing some pretty interesting things with the medium.

But Zach Galligan and Matthew Weiner? Solid showrunners, and they've created great shows. But they haven't established the auterist qualities of a Spielberg, or a Malick. Or, for comparison's sake, Milch, who swung and whiffed hard with the unforgettable and cinematic "John From Cincinatti," which felt more like a film-sized flop than a TV-centric one.

First of all, get the man's name right if you're going to dismiss him. It's Vince Gilligan, and I think you're being far too dismissive of "Breaking Bad". That show is more cinematic than 90% of what's in theaters. I do not know how anyone could possibly watch that show and not feel like it's the result of a singular unique vision.

Also, if we're going to talk about a single show influencing the whole medium, how about "The Office"? The slew of single-camera, docu-style sitcoms that followed was a direct result of "The Office". Also, as mentioned above, "The Sopranos" was a hugely influential show, one that paved the way for what shows like "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" are doing now.

Honestly, it sounds like you just don't like TV very much, and you're doing a whole bunch of verbal gymnastics to basically say "TV isn't better than movies because TV is TV". You're just talking in a circle.

The first episode of BBC's Sherlock, "A Study In Pink", is the best example of cinema-ready television to come to mind. It's hyper-slick, visually rich, wide in scope, & could easily translate onto the big screen without missing a beat. This is due to the visual imagination of it's director, filmmaker Paul McGuigan (Gangster No. 1, Lucky Number Slevin).

Thank God people called Kyle on that Breaking Bad bullshit. I have stood out of my chair reading that in incredulity. And for the record, YES I think that some of the domestic stuff is among the best subplots the show has ever done. In particular Skylar and Walt re-enacting The War of the Roses with crime in S3 was fucking brilliant--painful to watch, but brilliant.

This whole argument does seem to be getting into apples and oranges territory. Film is a concise medium and TV is a sprawling one. Neither aspect makes one inherently better than the other.

It's apples and oranges.  Television can never compete with cinema, because they're different mediums.  Just because they both have a script, director and actors doesn't mean they can compete.  How can you compare a multi episode show with a single 2 hour movie?  Their means of delivering information to the audience are very different.  (Most) cinema relies primarily on visual and auditory information to tell the story and deliver its impact.  Television relies more on dialogue and plot to push its agenda...the differences can be boiled down to one very simple technique:

The Kuleshov experiment

Whereby a single close up of a man looking at several different things, with no change of expression in each edit, is a powerful example of editing and visual information to deliver story and is the hallmark of cinema as an art form.  Television, for the most part, does not rely on this technique nearly as much, or even at all in some instances.

I look at television as more of a very long novel with many different chapters that can be satisfying over an extended period of time, a serialized form of entertainment.  But no television show can deliver the same impact as It's A Wonderful Life, 2001: A Space Odyssey (pick your Kubrick film), Citizen Kane, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Godfather, Raging Bull, or There Will Be Blood...IMO of course. I reiterate that it's an apples and oranges comparison.

Strike Back has pretty much ruined action films for me.

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Originally Posted by The Prankster 

I remember this argument being advanced in the mid-90s, which was another very strong era for TV contrasted with a particularly weak one for movies. I think the difference now is that, yes, TV has become hard to distinguish from movies, production-wise. Every so often I'll hear someone deride a movie for looking like a TV show and I'll be a little bewildered, because there are so many amazing-looking TV shows right now.

That's pretty much it. Even at its best, mid-90's TV for the most part still looked and felt like TV, but somewhere along the line (around Sopranos time I guess) good TV became pretty much indistinguishable from low/medium budget cinema. Band Of Brothers was another one - the only thing that separates that from Saving Private Ryan is that one's long form storytelling and the other is short form. In a way TV seems to have picked up where the 90's indie film scene left off.

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Moreover, the false "golden age" of television is myth, perpetuated by the growth of the television industry as a whole. As much as people will cheer for "Mad Men," it still brings in a tiny fraction of the viewers of your least favorite piece of shit reality show. Even after the post-"Lost," post-"24" age of serialized storytelling, what remains the biggest show on television? Talent showcases like "American Idol." Procedurals like "CSI." Laugh track sitcoms.

As the saying goes, 99% of everything is shit. The fact so many instant classic shows made it through intact over the last ten years or so is what made it a golden age.

Are televisions art?

It's not, to me, a matter of one being better than the other. But if you look at both in the context of their entire history it is pretty apparent that TV is right now at a much better place than cinema. Avid TV fans have for the last ten years regularly had to update their all time top lists. Regularly. But when it comes to movies this isn't happening.* There is this momentum that TV has right now that fills me with optimism. You could claim that something will come along and dethrone The Wire from the top of my list and I'd have no trouble accepting that. If you told me that there's a movie coming coming up that will give Citizen Kane, or Lawrence Of Arabia or The Godfather competition for inclusion in my all time top three I'd laugh. Cinema misses that tidal surge TV seems to be surfing on right now.

*Unless we're talking about the "Old movies are dumb LOL!" type of crowd.

They're related but different and both great for some of the same reasons but also different ones, so I don't think there's any need for competition. Some TV shows have achieved things with longform storytelling that films have barely if ever touched, but film has trumped TV plenty of times too. It doesn't make sense to judge them against each other that way though, nor to hold up specific low points of either as proof of inferiority. Both mediums are capable of reaching amazing heights.
 

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Originally Posted by Ambler 

It's apples and oranges.  Television can never compete with cinema, because they're different mediums.  Just because they both have a script, director and actors doesn't mean they can compete.  How can you compare a multi episode show with a single 2 hour movie?  Their means of delivering information to the audience are very different.  (Most) cinema relies primarily on visual and auditory information to tell the story and deliver its impact.  Television relies more on dialogue and plot to push its agenda...the differences can be boiled down to one very simple technique:

 

The Kuleshov experiment

 

Whereby a single close up of a man looking at several different things, with no change of expression in each edit, is a powerful example of editing and visual information to deliver story and is the hallmark of cinema as an art form.  Television, for the most part, does not rely on this technique nearly as much, or even at all in some instances.

 

I look at television as more of a very long novel with many different chapters that can be satisfying over an extended period of time, a serialized form of entertainment.  But no television show can deliver the same impact as It's A Wonderful Life, 2001: A Space Odyssey (pick your Kubrick film), Citizen Kane, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Godfather, Raging Bull, or There Will Be Blood...IMO of course. I reiterate that it's an apples and oranges comparison.

 

 

 

 

So what you're saying is that they're apples and oranges insofar as oranges can never be as good as apples? Kay.

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

TV will always be TV and cinema will always be cinema. 

Have to disagree with you there, buddy. Even now the lines between the two are irreversibly blurring. Art Decade's mention of Sherlock Holmes' "A Study In Pink" being the latest greatest example of this. Just as the lines between Internet and Cable are blurring... soon all will be one. 

/singularity

..and Hollywood agrees with you! Remember that The Dark Tower was originally going be a film, a miniseries, a second film etc. Sure the plans fell through, but I think it's a matter of time before someone does this.

SciFi released Battlestar Galactica Razor as a film in 20 odd theaters around the country. It was done more for the fans than anything else, but damned if it wasn't effective (my theater was packed!).

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Originally Posted by Dan Benenson 

 

So what you're saying is that they're apples and oranges insofar as oranges can never be as good as apples?

And vice versa.

To me the best TV show can never trump the best movie in terms of impact.  That's just my own personal opinion.

This argument brought to you by fucking Joyce Carol Oates in Ninteen Eighty fucking Five.

What do you mean by "impact"?

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Originally Posted by Schwartz 

What do you mean by "impact"?

I'm sure it's different for everybody.  Personally, my favorite TV show(s) can't touch my favorite movie(s) in terms of how it affects me.  There's no right or wrong here.  It is truly an apples and oranges thing between the two.

TV is in a really interesting place right now.  There's a reason that more and more, big name Hollywood talent are dipping their toes in the TV waters.  Fincher, Scorcese, Aronofsky (word was he was working on something for HBO with Chabon).  Things are being done in the medium that we've only previously been able to experience on the big screen.  You mention the Kuleshov experiment, but there's no reason the powerful editing techniques of cinema can't be employed in television.  I think more than any show I've ever seen, Breaking Bad has co-opted the visual language of cinema, expressing meaning through framing and editing.  There's no reason to think other shows won't come along and expand on these techniques. 

Forget what is typically done in each medium and focus on what is possible.  The difference between the two truly boils down to long form/short form.  That's it. 

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Originally Posted by JuddL 

TV is in a really interesting place right now.  There's a reason that more and more, big name Hollywood talent are dipping their toes in the TV waters.  Fincher, Scorcese, Aronofsky (word was he was working on something for HBO with Chabon).  Things are being done in the medium that we've only previously been able to experience on the big screen.  You mention the Kuleshov experiment, but there's no reason the powerful editing techniques of cinema can't be employed in television.  I think more than any show I've ever seen, Breaking Bad has co-opted the visual language of cinema, expressing meaning through framing and editing.  There's no reason to think other shows won't come along and expand on these techniques. 

 

Forget what is typically done in each medium and focus on what is possible.  The difference between the two truly boils down to long form/short form.  That's it. 

Yup.  Name one thing that movies can do that a TV show is technically unable to do.  I'm pretty sure you can't, but until you do, talking about how TV will "never" be able to stand up to a movie is going to sound asinine to me.  We keep talking about movies and TV as if they're distinct art forms when they're actually different economic models.  It's fine to prefer one model to the other, but let's not pretend that a piece of cinema's quality is dependent on the size of screen it is released on. 

I mean, Transformers 3 is long as shit, and it was released on all the biggest screens in the world.  Neither its length nor its spectacle nor its "impact" in dollars earned or how the industry decided to chase those dollars means that it was qualitatively better than absolutely any other thing that has ever found it's way to any screen, ever.
 

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Originally Posted by JuddL 

 You mention the Kuleshov experiment, but there's no reason the powerful editing techniques of cinema can't be employed in television.

Sure it can, but for now, for the most part, it's not.  With more filmmakers of note crossing over, maybe it will in the future.  Unfortunately for now, the nature of the TV business model doesn't lend itself to doing this.  I like oranges better than I like apples, but they're both good and good for you.