I am fascinated by FX. They aren't afraid to hit the long ball. The Riches, Rescue Me, Nip Tuck, The Shield, Over There, Thief - heck, even Dirt - this is amazing stuff for basic cable.
Movies have become about big opening weekends and big special effects. That's fine, but TV has become the venue for writers.
And as far as comedy goes - the current Thursday night lineup on NBC - 2 blessed hours without a laugh track and some genuine brilliance - is encouraging. ( of course Arrested Development is still gone and Knights of Prosperity didn't make it and The World According to Jim and George Lopez still live ... ) I guess you gotta take the crunchy with the smooth. < g >
>>Sopranos, Deadwood, Rome, The Sheild, Rescue Me, BSG ( and of course, Buffy ) - so many good examples as to why TV is better than movies ever were or ever could be. A writer's medium with room for story and dialogue and foreshadowing and subtlety. Characters have time to change...
>
>This is only a recent phenomenon. TV networks have been deathly afraid of offending the public, and more importantly the advertisers. Movie studios imagined themselves to be in the realm of art and were and are probably on average willing to take more risks.
>
>That said, there is a strong and easy to make case that were in the golden age of television as far as writing goes.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
