Tag Archive for: television

Premium for Free?

Looking at the cable bill last night made me think about the premium movie channels. It’s no secret that HBO is hurting for viewers right now. No more Sex and the City and The Sopranos created a void in HBO’s television programming. The TV shows that have taken their place, while they have a following, just don’t score as high in the ratings. There are several TV shows that I watch on premium networks, such as Dexter, True Blood, Entourage, and Californication. The problem is, in this economy, people are going to start cutting premiums out of their lives to save money. If they do cancel the service but enjoy the TV show, there is more incentive to pirate it or stream it from websites that host not-so-legal files. Here is my proposition to the premium networks: Stream the programs for free.

The major networks are streaming their content for free already. I know, I know, you don’t pay for the major networks, you do for HBO or Showtime. Let’s look at it in a different way. If HBO and Showtime started streaming their premium programs (shows, not movies) for free, but with limited commercial interruptions (just like the networks do on their respective sites), they could be reaching out to millions of more people and see additional revenue in new advertising. This is something they don’t see on their channels, as they do not show advertising. My theory is that most people don’t subscribe to a channel for one TV show. They also enjoy the other benefits the channel has to offer (other shows, new movies, sporting events, documentaries). If that channel starts streaming television shows I doubt you’d see people drop their subscription, and if you do, the amount that would would be far less than the amount you would gain by advertisements on the stream. I also think it could help them pick up subscribers. If people become interested enough in the shows to look at what else the channel has to offer, they could become new paying customers. I think it would be a smart move for the premium networks to look into this. Streaming content is not going away.

Primeval

A few days ago I downloaded the first episode of the BBC TV show Primeval for free on iTunes. It’s a sci-fi show about a rip in time and space where dinosaurs, giant insects, and whatever else comes through from their time to present day. There is also a bigger underlying story about one of the main characters’ missing wife, who we find out went through this rip when she disappeared years earlier. It’s very cheesy, but in a good way. The special effects aren’t the best, but they aren’t terrible. I can imagine they will have some pretty good stories of different things from the past coming through. All in all it’s a good show and a quick hour waster. If you like sci-fi shows at all, check it out on BBC America.

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The Tori Paradox

Everyone knows what a Saved by the Bell geek I am. If you didn’t know that then did you really know me? I mean, come on. As much as I love the show there are a few things that bug me. The biggest thing is when the tough biker chick Tori came on the show and Kelly and Jessie disappeared. Now, the story behind the switch is that NBC wanted more episodes after the final season was filmed. Tiffany Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley, who played Kelly and Jessie, already committed to other things and didn’t want to film any more episodes. So what did the network do? They filmed additional episodes with a new girl, Tori, didn’t explain what happened to Jessie or Kelly, and stuck them in the middle of the last season. So in the last season we see Jessie and Kelly, then Tori, then Jessie and Kelly are back in time for graduation. This bugs me because there was no explanation and these episodes were clearly inferior. Then I started thinking, is an explanation really necessary?

I think back at my life. There are definitely times in my life when the friends I hung out with every day suddenly disappeared and I was no longer with them. Then all of the sudden, they’d be back in my life. This happened a lot in college, with both college friends and high school friends. The people I met while I was in college never knew my high school friends and I rarely, if ever, talked about my high school friends, just as the gang never talked about Jessie and Kelly when Tori came around. Then after college I started hanging out with some of my high school friends and some of my college friends disappeared. True, they were still in the same school on Saved by the Bell, but think about high school for a minute. It wasn’t that long ago. Weren’t there times when you stopped hanging with particular people, for no particular reason, then started hanging with them again? Maybe it was a busy semester for them, or you. Think about the people you’ve lost contact with and then later became best friends again. They are your Tori. Or you are theirs. Either way, while completely inferior to previous and later episodes, the Tori episodes actually do make sense. Even though Saved by the Bell is nowhere near real, that’s one part that is. Everyone has been a Tori or had Tori friends. You can sit there and watch episodes with Tori and not wonder where Kelly and Jessie are, just as you don’t always wonder where your lost friends went. So, no longer will I judge these episodes for the wool that NBC tried to pull over my eyes. I will judge them based on how good they actually were, which, except for the school song episode, they pretty much sucked.

The George Lopez Show

Lately I’ve been unable to sleep. I find myself watching old sitcoms late at night to try and lull me to sleep. It usually starts with Home Improvement and then I either listen to music or find something else to watch. Lately, I’ve just kept the channel wherever it was and watched what came on after Home Improvement. That would be the George Lopez Show.

I never watched this show when it was on in prime time. In fact, I don’t ever remember seeing it advertised at all. I mean, I remember hearing he had a show and I knew it was on ABC, but I never saw one advertisement for it or any promotion whatsoever. It seems like ABC treated it as filling their quota of minorities on TV and didn’t actually care if people watched it. That’s a shame. I’ve watched a few episodes and it is very funny. I have no idea how long it was on the air but I’m sure it probably wasn’t long enough. The characters on the show are great, George himself is funny, and it’s just a funny family sitcom. It’s a shame it wasn’t on a different network. I can’t tell you a sitcom I’ve watched on ABC in the last 10 years. They don’t have a record of the best sitcoms. Hour-long dramas and shows like Lost, yeah, but sitcoms seem to be dead on arrival there.

Anyway, if you’ve never watched the show and find yourself with some free time and notice it’s on, do yourself a favor and watch it. It’s surprisingly good.

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Just sit right back and hear a tale

Do you ever sit back and laugh (and cry) at some of the dumb antics the Bush Administration engages in? Does it seem too crazy to be true, like you’re almost watching a TV show? Well, Peter Norvig asks, what if the Bush Administration was a remake of Gilligan’s Island? This is what he came up with:

Plot Synopses for Episodes of a Gilligan’s Island Remake Starring Members of the Bush Administration.

BY PETER NORVIG

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Gilligan invades a neighboring island of cannibals. He mistakenly believes that Mary Ann and Ginger would be a sufficient force to secure the island, and Skipper erroneously claims they would be welcome as liberators.

A hurricane hits the island. Gilligan does nothing to help, but tells Mrs. Howell, “Lovey, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

Skipper goes hunting for fowl on the island and accidentally shoots Mr. Howell in the face, then waits a day before telling Gilligan.

The professor’s experiments conclusively show that climate change is causing the island to sink into the sea. Gilligan erases his papers and tries to stop him from talking, thinking that will make the problem go away.