Pilot (or How I Learned to Stop Watching and Pretend That I'm a Douchebaggy Professor in TV)

I am pretty excited about beginning this new blog. I have been pretty fascinated by the blogging community as of late, and finally I can now be part of it. Well, I guess you could say I've been a part of it since 2001 when I started my LiveJournal. But that was different... that was just crap about my life. That was boring. This blog will have Something Important to say. Something about society, about life. About... TV.

Shut up. TV is very important! It shows us what kind of a culture we are currently in. Like any other business, television caters to the demands of the public. A few years ago, people wanted dumbed-down "experimental" entertainment - hence the wasteland that was the Reality TV era. Not that I'm knocking Reality TV - I have my own personal favorites with "Big Brother," "The Amazing Race," and the amazingness that is the "Flavor of Love"/"I Love New York" empire.

But now, it looks like society is split into several large factions: the Procedurals and the Serials. Procedurals began a few years ago with the groundbreaking "CSI" in 2000, and has gone on to spawn the rest of the "CSI" franchise, "Cold Case," "Without a Trace," "Bones," etc. Granted, probably procedurals started with "Law and Order," and, more specifically, "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," but I credit the original Las Vegas-based "CSI" as beginning the current trend. These shows deal with one case an episode, with the investigators, well, investigating a case and coming up with a conclusion at the end of the episode. Now, the shows have several character arcs that continue on, but nothing in the realm of story, really, unless it's sweeps, such as "CSI," which this month has brought back The Miniature Killer, a serial killer who plants miniature dioramas of his crime scenes at the crime scenes. But usually, these don't go on for that long. "CSI" was the reigning scripted drama of the last few years, until "Grey's Anatomy" beat it this year. Despite the Serials gaining high watercooler and pop culture status, more Procedurals win in the ratings game then not.

Now, onto the Serials: Serials are shows that have several long-running character and story arcs over the course of any number of seasons. Serials began back in the 1980's, when prime-time soaps like "Dallas," "Dynasty," and "Knots Landing" gained popularity. In the early-90's, serials got a strange sci-fi/mystery twist to them when David Lynch and Mark Frost created "Twin Peaks," which gave birth to "Genre TV," which then gave birth to "The X-Files," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and all other number of shows, the descendants which are continuing today. Now, there are several subgenres within Serial TV: Genre serials, which are the more fantastical of the bunch, which include "Lost," "Heroes," "Battlestar Galactica," "Jericho," and the now-dead "Alias," "Buffy," and "Angel"; Mystery serials, which have one on-going mystery a season, which includes "Veronica Mars" and... "Prison Break," I guess; Sitcom serials, sitcoms that rely on you watching every episode to follow the story, which includes "Entourage" and the now-dead "Arrested Development" and "Sex and the City"; Gimmick serials, serials that are predicated on a particular gimmick, such as "24" and the now-dead "Day Break" and "The Nine," all of which were spawned by the 90's underrated classic "Murder One"; Serial serials, which are like old-school serials in that they have ongoing arcs, but no central story per se, such as "Grey's Anatomy," "Nip/Tuck," "Brothers and Sisters," "The Sopranos," and "The Shield"; and mixture serials, which are mixtures of any of the above, which include "Desperate Housewives," "Ugly Betty," and "Weeds."

Traditionalism is being thrown out the window currently. Even though sitcoms still are around, traditional three-camera sitcoms are becoming more and more irrelevant (even though the Nielsens claim that "Three and a Half Men" is the number one sitcom... which I find suspect... expect a blog on CBS's lies in a little while). What began with "Seinfeld" (a traditional sitcom in terms of being three-camera with a live audience, but groundbreaking in that the characters were not a family or co-workers... just apathetic neurotic friends) culminated in the new single-camera sitcom. Pioneered by "Arrested Development," filmed as a documentary with one-camera and no laugh track, the new sitcom continues strong with "The Office," "My Name is Earl," "Scrubs," "30 Rock," and "Knights of Prosperity." There are a few traditional sitcoms, but some, like "How I Met Your Mother," throw three-camera physics out the window and proceed with flashbacks, flash-forwards, and asides, despite the idea of a "live" audience.

Another fun thing to see now is how some shows blatantly borrow from others. While this has always gone on (what law show doesn't look like another, sometimes?), even the stylistic differences across genres are being taken. For instance: I love snappy dialogue on TV. Arguably, this began with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," where the students of Sunnydale High spoke in a highly stylized near-"Heathers"-level of nonexistent slang. This led to other such stylized speakings, like "Gilmore Girls," which is famous for its Preston Sturges speed and its ability to squeeze in seven pop culture references in ten seconds, "Veronica Mars," which prides itself on Dashiell Hammet speed and snap, and "Grey's Anatomy," which has seen the inside jokes and nicknames spoken by its characters (McDreamy, "Seriously!", vahjayjay, etc.) become part of the national lexicon. The fun part of all this is seeing a show like "Bones" try to bogart this stylized speech for itself. It works fine, but it's funny because it wasn't there at the beginning. Only until recently have Bones and Booth had back-and-forth banter not seen on a Procedural.

Well, that's enough of me waxing douchebag on TV. This blog will consist mostly of reviews of the TV I watch, along with the occassional post about where I think culture is headed with TV and vice versa. I really hope you stay tuned for it.

Until then. Same bat time, same bat channel.

- Cesar