Which is better - watching an old TV show that's already off the air, or watching a TV show that's still on the air?
With an older show, you're able to watch it all at once, at whatever intervals you want. With new shows you have to be appeased with only one episode a week, and one season a year. But with an old show you can get to the end so quickly, and there will never be any more. A current show is still ongoing, and you can hope for many more seasons to come.
But such an ongoing show isn't necessarily a good thing. Somebody may have an amazing idea for a TV show. But can they make it work for 100 episodes? And after a while, things have to end. I'd rather have a show end strong and definitively, than stumble on for more seasons slowly spiraling downwards. There are plenty of shows that take the latter route. Las Vegas was a very enjoyable show in my opinion. It's not the kind of show that had epic storylines, but it was just really fun to watch. But eventually, things start going downhill. I didn't even watch the fifth and final season because the internet tells me that things went pretty downhill at that point. Similar thing with That 70s Show. The only episodes I watched from the final season were the first and last episodes. It just lost something. And when you lose major cast members, and try to continue the show as usual, that's a pretty good indications that you're stretching a show on too long. And a benefit to older shows being watched all at once: you know ahead of time if the final season is disastrous and you should just skip it. If you're watching it while it is still ongoing, you will end up suffering through it, until it receives a mercy canceling to put it out of its misery.
Some of the best shows I know are only one or two seasons long. Actually, that's mostly because I like weird shows that don't do well with the general public. And then they get canceled. But it is great when they get enough warning to write in a good ending. The show obviously didn't drag itself on too long because it's only one or two seasons old, but it has a definitive ending. No cliff hanger that will leave a question in the air forever. Dollhouse was able to wrap itself up quite nicely in my opinion for the second season finale. Firefly was a show that didn't get a chance to end with a good ending episode. Luckily we got a movie to cap it off. Freaks and Geeks is another show that was able to end well. And what makes this type of ending even better, is that it was able to serve as the end of the entire series. But if it had been renewed, it would not have been out of place. It would have worked just as well as a season end. It wrapped things up, gave some direction as to what was happening afterwards, but not enough to make it a real cliffhanger. I wish more shows ended seasons like that.
I am not a big fan off cliffhangers. Especially for season finales. If you only have a week to wait until everything is resolved, that's fine - it can be make to work rather well. But several months before resolution is just silly. By the time it comes back on, things are forgotten and people care less. And in most cases, the cliffhanger is resolved in that one episode and it gives some direction of where this new season is headed, but not enough for it to be a cliffhanger. Which is the same thing I said about Freaks and Geeks's superb ending. For such a long wait, there are too many specifics left in the air. And to have such a big thing be resolved in a single episode makes it seem as if it wasn't that big of a deal. But if you leave a season finale with some general directions of how things will go from there, I think it works much better in the minds of people waiting for the new season. That and you don't get canceled and end on an unresolved cliffhanger. The thing that people are wondering about for the entire offseason isn't resolved in a single episode. The general foreshadowing they are left with is something that will play out in the entire next season.
Watching old TV shows can be fun. You watch a bunch all at once, and you only watch the best of the show. But then it ends and there is no more. And if the show was pretty popular when it was on the air, you may feel like you're behind the times. But watching a current show, you deal with drawn out airing schedules, bad season ending cliffhangers, and possibly even the apprehension waiting to see if the show will even be renewed for another season. Or it could keep getting renewed, but the storytelling is slowly but surely headed downhill, with perhaps a feeling that things are being dragged on much further than they should be.
Of course, I watch old and current shows. You get a nice mix of the good and bad of each that way.
at Friday, February 18, 2011
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