Would you rather see new shows or older ones released on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Doug Wallen]

Seems to me that arc based shows were around before the 90's. Remember Hill St. Blues, St. Elsewhere and Dallas. These shows were essentially self contained, but actions built week by week and the whole actually resembled real life with real flesh and blood characters.

 

[MatthewA]

It matters to me, too, and I'm not going to dismiss a show just because of those things. I am not talking about shows like The Sopranos and 24, which I never watched but might very well be as good as has been said. There are other shows that are higher in priority. But these shows are not representative of today's TV climate. Jerry Springer and his ilk are. My grandparents are pretty liberal and they told me that they thought Springer "should be banned from television." I'm not in favor of banning anything. We tried banning alcohol, and look what happened there. It doesn't change the fact that excessive alcohol consumption is bad for your health. So, for that matter, is having a negative attitude all the time.

I am not interested in current TV. I don't like modern sitcoms because they fail the first prerequisite of comedy: they do not make me laugh. I don't like modern dramas because they just plain don't interest me, and I like none of the various sub-genres of "reality" TV. I am also sick of the handheld/shaky camera school of cinematography. It's an obnoxious cliché that wore out its welcome a decade ago. Steadicam was invented for a reason. There is enough stuff from the past out there so that I do not feel deprived, but there still could be more.

This is a free country with a free market, and if the studios will not serve the demand for popular shows from the past on DVD (which does exist despite attempts to deny it), then they don't deserve our buisness. They are going after short-term gains at the expense of the long-term health and image of the company. If they continue on this path I will shed no tears when they collapse. Surely this great nation can withstand a DVD collection of Father Knows Best.

 

[MatthewA]

That is true. People tend to forget how good "Dallas" was the first few years because of the aftermath of the dream season and the comparatively lackluster seasons which followed.

Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere set the template for the modern police and hospital dramas, respectively, but they have yet to be equaled, and I'm betting they never will. The current crop certainly does not come close.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I... I don't know how to respond to this. Do you seriously think that not releasing old TV shows, which have consistently sold less than more contemporary material, is going to drive the studios out of business? Is this wishful thinking or delusion?

 

[TravisR]

Yes and I'm pretty sure that's the seventh sign of the apocalypse.

 

[Elena S]

Interesting arguments going on here, guys. I'm just fascinated by the different viewpoints, and it's interesting to see how the disintegration of moral values in public culture has changed the mindsets of those who grew up in it. The all-powerful media really has succeeded in brainwashing the current generation into embracing a lower standard of living, both in real life and in what they watch on TV.

My question to the last post is: How do you know that older shows consistently sell worse than contemporary material? There's not enough of the former out on DVD to compare. If some of the quality older shows were released, I daresay they would give their contemporaries a run for their money (both figuratively and literally).

 

[David Levine]

Deleted.

This has become a very ugly thread and I'm done with it.

 

[TravisR]

That's such an insulting and simplistic viepwoint that it's not even worth responding to.

EDIT: I'm really not trying to be rude with my above statement but blaming society's ills on the media is a simple answer to a question that has no easy answer. I don't really think your intent was to be insulting but saying that anyone under a certain age is brainwashed because they don't hold the same values as you is insulting.

 

[MatthewA]

Do you get pleasure out of making snide comments like that and systematically debasing everything that predates the year 2000? And where do you get your figures about sales of older TV shows, which you obviously seem to detest? Consider how little advertising or effort is put into what few back catalog releases there are, with a few exceptions.

 

[Hank Dearborn]

Roseanne was the first hit show about trailer trash. I watched the pilot and it was too blue collar/low class for me. Not my kind of show and not something I could relate too and I grew up lower middle class. And by the way, "realistic"? How realistic is it for 2 fat parents like that to have 3 thin kids?

 

[Hank Dearborn]

So Gilmore Girls is a positive show? I didn't watch it but I infer it's about a woman who was a teen unwed mother at 16. Great positive influence that is. Wonderful. Maybe if we had fewer shows depicting things like that the world would be better off.

 

[Jay_B!]

The Conner's were blue collar, but not "trailer trash", even though Becky and Mark ended up moving into a trailer in season 7, but even then, that was for comedic effect. They were a blue collar family who struggled to make ends meet, and like it or not, there are a lot of Americans who could identify with that family, one of the reasons that show took off so well when it did was because audiences were beginning to tire of The Cosby Show, a type of family that just isn't believable in any sense of the word. No way would a doctor father and lawyer mother be able to spend so much time at home with their kids. I admit that my parents were probably in middle ground of the Huxtables and Conner's income-wise, but you could sense the realism on Roseanne because things weren't always perfect for Roseanne and Dan. They lost their jobs, they were denied things, Dan had a heart attack, Roseanne would get sick, etc...., they were human beings and America responded to seeing people on television for a change, instead of superhumans. Roseanne and Dan had flaws, you would never ever see Cliff or Clair Huxtable admit wrongdoing in any form, and that was a reason why Roseanne was really the first show that actually challenged Cosby in the ratings when it came on.

You saw the first episode and didn't like it? you missed out, season 1 sucked compared to the seasons after the kids got older and more and more of the show was about Roseanne and Jackie and less about Becky giving them troubles.

BTW, the most unrealistic thing about the show (not counting season 9, since it was revealed to be a dream season in the finale anyways) was that in real life, Roseanne really went through a lot of plastic surgery around 1992, while at the time on the show, her character was unemployed and couldn't even afford to pay for electricity, yet nobody on the show even made mention of the plastic surgery that she was obviously having at the time.

I do believe Roseanne had it's trashy moments (but I feel people are way too harsh on it in that aspect, Married With Children was trash, Roseanne was more blue collar/midwest) but it was definately one of the three or four best sitcoms of the 1990's without question, along with Seinfeld. And the show has aged very well outside of maybe the first two or three seasons which were more kid-focused.

 

[Gary OS]

For the record, I'm done with this thread too (like David Levine). I personally think we've all made our cases clear. And the issues do merit discussion up to a certain point. But that's why I said what I did in my last post above. We've come to a place now where it's a matter of almost diametrically opposing worldviews, and nothing we say beyond this point is going to get us anywhere. So I'm done and hope we can move on.

Gary "I for one don't want to see people like David Levine leave threads out of frustration - his input is very valuable and I hope in the future he will continue to post" O.

 

[Jason Seaver]

There's a relevant phrase involving the colors of a pot and a kettle.

Still, the idea that I'm out to "systematically debase everything that predates the year 2000" is just patently absurd. I simply believe than each generation has greater potential than the one before, since it has had the prior ones to learn from. Not everyone in each generation learns well, or puts that knowledge to good use, but that simply makes the continuum wider on both ends.

Yes, the very worst today is worse than the bottom of the barrel fifty years ago. But the best is also much better, and both have the freedom to talk about a broader range of subject matter. And we're better for it.

 

[Aryn Leroux]

Talk about a depressing thread.. depending on your age your going to prefer older or newer shows, that should go without saying. I was all set to comment on why id rather see older shows. Then after reading where this was going it doesn't make any sense to, and that's to bad.

 

[Jay_B!]

like it or not, there is no such thing as a perfect world. Lorelai had Rory way too early, but the show was about her taking the lemons handed to her and being able to be a successful woman as well as loving mother.

You remind me of my brother who hates everything that isn't him, and I can't stomach my brother.

 

[TravisR]

As you said, you don't watch it so you're criticizing something without having seen it. What's positive about the show is that she made a better life for herself and her child and overcame the mistake she made. The show repeatedly makes it clear that life as a single mother is hard and not a situation that people want to get themselves into.

EDIT: I'm sorry I've added to the degenration of this thread but there have been comments made that I feel needed to be addressed (such as blanket statements about an entire generation of people or making incorrect assumptions about shows that they've never even watched).

 

[Jay_B!]

but Lorelai is depicted as a person and not an idea. I dunno, it all ticks me off. I'll never understand why some people are so closedminded and full of hate

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I would agree that SEINFELD was one of the exceptions in modern decades -- a good show and well-written.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

People can only watch what is made available to them on television in the first place as part of a menu. If, for an extreme example, the networks only offered shows like THE WALTONS, THE BRADY BUNCH, THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE and FATHER KNOWS BEST, then these would be the shows people would have to choose from, and they'd ultimately project a more positive aura. It's like a self-fulfilling aura that is maintained when nothing but ugliness and gloom and doom is what's available. Do you think that shows like LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, I LOVE LUCY, and THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY were hits on TV because "this is what the people wanted and it is all about supply and demand"? Hell, no -- the stations had these programs on their schedules, and people then had to watch what was made available to them, and so they watched them and enjoyed them.

If all you're being offered is JERRY SPRINGER, THE OSBOURNES, "CHEAT ON YOUR PARTNER" (meaning TEMPTATION ISLAND or some such nonsense), BRIDEZILLAS, AMERICA'S MOST WANTED, TO CATCH A PREDATOR or COPS, then the audience becomes "conditioned" to these types of extreme programs and wants more, more, more, more. Like taking a harmful drug and becoming addicted and then saying "I like it, man, I need more of it!". The audience may now be "demanding" such programming, but that's only because this is what the networks "supplied" them with in the first place to hook them in.