How TV has changed....

[[TFU] Thegoon84]

I am by no means an expert, or by any measure have any artistic perspective.... BUT

Television over the past 8 years has finally began to meet need. I think back to 90's, shows like Buffy, Stargate, Sopranos...... These were considered ground breaking 10+ series 23 eps monsters!

Fast forward 15 years, we all have series which cater to our own tastes, which have huge followings, granted some have basic story lines and obvious plots.... But it suits some and doesn't suit others!

Point of this thread is, *raises a glass, to the next level of television! What a time to be alive...... Lets hope in 15 years time we'll be visiting NSFW Disney land AKA westworld!!!

 

[rhysduck]

Here here.

 

[D3K]

TV quality plateaued with the sopranos and almost met by Breaking Bad.

The TV now is great, but mainly in variety rather than quality and we've been here for about 5 years.

 

[FoxEye]

There's an awful lot of **** on TV too. There probably always has been.

But I think as we get older, having seen some of the best that TV has to offer, we probably get less tolerant of the ****. Or at least I have.

Now I'm positively insulted by about 50% of what's on TV. Mindless crap, but worse than that, mindless crap that's not even original. Rehashing crap to make it *even worse* has been a recurring theme of the last few years.

 

[something daft already!!]

It is balanced out by thousands of hours of mindless dross viewing like the petty lives of people in "reality TV programmes", who are only famous because we are told they are. I would say there is more rubbish on TV than ever before but you can easily choose not to watch it. Probably the best of times and the worst of times?

 

[Raymond Lin]

I am still waiting for that show which gave me the feelings of Two Cathedrals episode in the West Wing.

There are a LOT more stuff to watch now, there are your network television, your cable shows like HBO stuff, which used to be the edgy stuff, and then Netflix threw a new spanner in the works. This is before we talk about Hulu, Prime video, and there are even good content on YouTube which all take up valuable time.

I very rarely turn on the TV to "catch" something anymore. Only exception is live sporting events, even the news these days are 24/7 on a kinda loop. Missed this new briefing? wait for the hour and it'll be read again.

Nobody watches MTV anymore either, it's all on YouTube, Vimeo etc.

 

[robfosters]

I never watch anything other live than sports either. I wanted to watch Taboo, but there was no way I was sitting down to watch a period drama on a Saturday night. Dont need o. There has been some awesome stuff these last few years though, BB, GOT, Sopranos, WW, Just all awesome stuff.

 

[~>Dg<~]

i dont agree.

normal tv is dross.utter dross.

box sets / series have come on leaps and bounds because of how the film trade went. basically got really tight no one wanted to risk loosing money on films. so many started doing series.

plus actors can get more money if a decent series.so its win win all round if its a great idea with less of a risk of a big film.financially.

thats why you havent seen many decent good films in last five years.ideas have to be great or no one will make the film or risk it. so all big actors went to series.

only channels on actual tv i watch is discovery channels, motors.discovery went down hill last 5-10 years. started putting stuff like finding bigfoot.stupid gold mining show set up shows and the like.as the normal.

so yes we had some great series. no that tv is better.

 

[AndyCr15]

So bigger stars are going to TV, some of the better movie ideas now go to TV... but TV is no better?

Without doubt, the level of TV has risen over the last 5 to 10 years. The money spent on it, the production level etc, far far better. Yes, of course there's some rubbish out there, but you're not forced to watch that.

 

[DrToffnar]

I don't have any figures to hand and I'm happy to be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that the more traditional 'packaged TV' is on the decline. People of my generation (25) just aren't willing to sit through the endless ad breaks in order to watch good TV. Not too mention that the majority of channels in your average packaged deals are filled with tosh.

The Netflix style subscription services are just nailing it at the moment, especially with the sheer quality of home grown shows like 'Stranger Things' and 'Man In The High Castle'.

Personally, I'm more of a YouTube kinda dude. Tis a little more personable IMO. I could quite happily go without it all so long as I can keep up with my favourite channels and random YouTube guff.

 

[Tom0]

I am glad we have such a choice on entertainment due to 95% of telly these days being utter rubbish.

Prime example, Mrs Brown getting his own Saturday night tv chat show.

What the ****.

 

[varkanoid]

Terrestial TV is no better if any its worse. Look at this weekend primetime. The Voice, (Kelly Clarkson was so annoying), Let It Shine (cringing), Dance Dance Dance (trailer looked good but didnt watch it) and CBB (just about)

Reality TV overload for primetime Saturday/Sunday

Glad Through The Keyhole is back though I like that show. I've probably been watching more Netflix and NowTV.

 

[Glaucus]

agree with tv is utter dross, however netflx and amazon are taking over in a big way with some excelent series and there new series are only coming out faster ad faster.
Must be easier when you can market globaly without %%%% contracts and licensing and also due to that global market they have, means even niche programs will have plenty of followers, the future is bright for progaming and abysmal for conventional tv.

i certainly watch more netflix and amazon than normal tv, in fact only program im watching at the moment is walking the Americas, and that's usually the case, only 1 decent program on at a time on normal tv a whole 1hr a week (before that was our guy in china and planet earth 2).

 

[SixTwoSix]

...means even niche programs will have plenty of followers, the future is bright for progaming and abysmal for conventional tv.

Stranger Things is a good example of this, I think had it been shown week by week on regular channels, folks would have lost patience and it wouldn't have the well deserved recognition it currently has.

 

[Steampunk]

HBO was the start. Lots of money equals high production values and good scripts, and then you get good actors (even those coming from movies) who see the chance to play good characters in good stories that actually have time to evolve over more than a two hour film. Netflix and Amazon have taken the same model and run with it.

Another inflection point was Micheal J. Fox returning to TV in Spin City. His health and family reasons (then unknown publicly) meant he wanted something closer to home. He was a massive movie star back then and it made waves that he went back to TV, and showed what a great actor could do in a TV show. That made it okay for a big successful movie star to do TV, without it seeming like it was a backwards step.

 

[SkeeterUK]

Take me back to the 80s and early 90s, tv was better then for me especially as a kid cartoons like thundercats was top notch. Wont find that these days for kids. Or shows like knighmare. Plus was a golden time for star trek, stargate and buffy etc. Plus neighbours and home and away had better cast and plots back then. There crap these days.

True shows like heroes/walking dead/got etc are nice but id rather watch tng as it was brand new back in the day if i had the choice.

Oh and theres only few good shows. Much of what is on is reality crap or period dramas. Hmm no thanks.

 

[Curunen]

Most of my normal TV viewing time still goes to older series like the various Star Trek or things like Hercules/Xena, Crystal Maze and so on.

While there are some good recent shows I still find they are too "mundane", exploring gritty realistic scenarios. Even the fantasy is gritty (ie GoT which I could never get into).

Though I am intending to watch The Expanse at some point, in the hopes of some great space sci-fi.

 

[AndyCr15]

agree with tv is utter dross, however netflx and amazon are taking over in a big way with some excelent series

To clarify. For me, when I say there's some amazing stuff on TV right now, I'm including Netflix and Amazon. Most of what I watch is either Netflix or downloaded American shows.

Oh and theres only few good shows

Personally I would say you're just not watching the right stuff. There's LOADS of good stuff. Too much for me to watch at the moment.

 

[[TFU] Thegoon84]

Should have made it more clear, talking of course about TV series.

There is next to nothing I enjoy on normal TV. Only things I like are on Discovery.

One thing tho, I like very little of anything that British. The closest thing I'd say was Outlander and that had a dreadful first few eps.

 

[SixTwoSix]

One thing tho, I like very little of anything that British. The closest thing I'd say was Outlander and that had a dreadful first few eps.

Luther, Peaky Blinders, Sherlock, The Fall?