The Off-Season OT: On Television

With college sports (for Missouri) going through their slowest part of the year, I’ve decided to fill up the off-season gap with one off-topic (usually pop culture-centric) post per week, only on Sundays. This week, I reflect on how my opinions on television have changed since getting into some of the acclaimed programs that basic cable has to offer.

When it comes to finding ways to entertain one’s own self on an otherwise boring day, there is a basic list of things that come to mind: work out, go out, read, clean up/ fix things around the house, sleep, watch a movie/ movies, watch TV, play a video game. That’s what we tend to think of when we have some time to kill, with no work or other important, obligatory matters to take care of. A person ultimately manages to do all of those things over the course of a lifetime more than once, but for the most part they also tend to focus on the ones that they enjoy the most.

So there are people who love to work out, then keep the house tidy, and then curl up on a comfy couch with a good book. There are people who will take cat naps out of boredom, and will DVR their favorite shows for whenever they have time to watch. Out of the big list of time-wasting activities, everyone has a short list, but for me, it seems like that short list is always changing.

My tiny shift towards television shows is all a matter of opportunity and quality. One year ago I would have scoffed at the idea of watching a TV show (other than sports) when I could be playing a video game or watching a movie. That was my short list for the better part of my tween-to-teenager years, along with books right before bedtime and minuscule amounts of exercise sprinkled throughout. To me, television was too much of a commitment, too much to keep track of. Why on Earth would I want to remember to tune in for King of the Hill every Sunday at a specific time on FOX when I could possibly have homework to do? That was ultimate killer for TV in my eyes; the inability to choose (this is, of course, before my household got the magic of DVR).

Now at the age of 18, I have undergone the great change. I’ll still play video games every now and then, but it’s kind of hard to do so when you’re still living with a 13-year-old brother who loves to scream gay slurs at the other players on Call of Duty. I still go to the movies, but not nearly as much as I used to, now that ticket prices are obscenely high (especially for those damn 3-D movies), and now that I’ve come to realize how truly awful Hollywood can be when it comes to making quality entertainment these days. Thus it was that I began my slow descent into the warming glow of television, and what a descent it has been.

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Television, to me, is still the biggest cesspool of the entertainment world for many reasons, but I don’t really mind it that much because “many reasons” is also what makes TV such a fun little medium. The power of choice is strong in all forms of entertainment, but outside of television, the only form of media that has more to choose from (and this is by a lot) are books, and that’s all because books have been around for far longer than any form of entertainment outside of jousting or public executions.

The sheer amount of dreck that can be found on TV is amazing, and this isn’t counting any pay-per-view pornography, which is quickly becoming the most worthless thing on television (note: I would never talk about the awful things on the internet. I can’t stomach it). From the crappy advertisements to the laugh track-filled “classic” sitcoms (not referring to actual classics but rather to new shows that still use laugh tracks, specifically Two and a Half Men) that have helped in the premature cancellations to the better comedies out there, to the paint-by-numbers cop procedural shows that are billed a original programming, to the absolute worst in television programming, reality TV.

That said, even though television is dominated by the bad, which was one of the reasons I shied away from it for so long, it makes sense that all mediums of entertainment are dominated by crap. For the most part, movies are more about gung-ho heroes, big explosions and beautiful women who couldn’t act their way out of a box. Even though gamers for the most part are able to buy the acclaimed games that get plenty of buzz, the seedy underbelly of the gaming world is still packed to the brim with some of the most unimaginable pieces  of sh*t around. This goes for books too, as there are so many books around, it wouldn’t be hard to accidentally pick up something that would better used as kindling for a fire than actual reading material.

That’s the thing that makes the different forms of entertainment not so different each other. In that there are plenty of options to choose from, it’s still easy to figure out how to tell the bad from the good when deciding on what to watch or play in order to avoid wasting away too much of your life. Even though you’ll still have to probably watch Glee every week with your girlfriend or take your children to the latest Kung Fu Panda movie, at least you’ll be able to avoid a lot of the bad stuff on your own time. It’s one of the joys of getting wiser as you grow older.

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[Minor Spoilers]

I’m sitting on my couch, staring at my TV with my mouth agape. Hank Schrader, a troubled DEA agent who was just suspended without pay for violently beating a junkie and suspected meth dealer, Jesse Pinkman, is lying in a grocery store parking lot with four gunshot wounds. Little did he know that while he was dealing with the legal matters from the Pinkman SNAFU, he was also being hunted by a pair of ruthless assassins connected to a Mexican drug ring. The scene where Hank gets a phone call from an unknown person telling him through a vocal distorter that he will be ambushed in one minute to the end of this episode, aptly titled ‘One Minute,’ is one of the most tense, most violent, and most effing awesome moments I have ever seen on a television show.

The show, for those of you who don’t know what the previous paragraph was about, is Breaking Bad. This show about a cancer-ridden chemistry teacher who looks to make more money for his family by getting into the meth business, along with the martini-noire drama, Mad Men, make up what many people describe as the two must-watch programs on AMC, a basic cable channel once called American Movie Classics that now likes to sprinkle in original shows. The new tagline for AMC is “story matters here.” It’s as if that tagline has a direct connection to my brain.

To me, the things that entertain me the most have to have a good story to go with it. Some people get by with mindlessly dumb things that make us feel smarter than we actually are. Some people love to escape their humdrum lives and drift into a fantasy world that is filled with lots of crazy and fantastic situations. Some people love to feed their intellectual sides by picking apart any shows/movies/books, be they smart or dumb, for the underlying themes or basic pieces of symbolism that define the entire show. For me, what I need the most in any and every movie and television show is a story. The better the story, the more I enjoy the show, movie, book, et cetera.

Maybe my love of a good story is biological and goes all the way back to my great-grandpa, who loved to tell stories to his two sons, including my own grandpa, who loves to tell stories to his children and grandchildren to this very day. What I do know is that my love of the story is the defining thing in my love of entertainment and pop culture. The Lord of Rings trilogy, when you look at it in its bare bones structure, is nothing but a tale that spans three books/movies about one hobbit trying to throw a ring into a volcano. Even then, J.R.R. Tolkien made the mistake of including giant eagles in his story, resulting in the argument that the hobbit may have simply hopped on one of those eagles and flown all the way to Mordor, making the journey last no more than a few days. But despite that one flaw that angry nerds love to point out, the story itself remains a timeless classic, and one of my favorite series of books and movies. Which brings me to the second thing about my love of the story; even though the story itself can be plain, all it takes is a good storyteller to turn that bland story into something amazing.

The thrill of the story is probably what has led to my increasing admiration in television, and mostly for the fact that TV seems to be just starting it’s exploration into how it can tell great stories. While movies tend to be one-and-a-half to three hour standalone pieces that may have a few sequels, TV shows can last for up to half of a decade or more, and whether it’s the half hour show (that is around 22 minutes in length) or the full hour show (that lasts around 47 minutes in length) or the full hour show on premium cable (that generally lasts anywhere from 55 minutes to a full hour in length) provide different options to move a story forward from week to week. Then to make things more difficult, things like the time constraints, budget constraints, and constant fear of losing viewers and ultimately getting canceled force the writers and showrunners to do everything in their power to tell a good story while also keeper the viewers coming back for the next episode. This constant need for quick thinking and improvisation has led to a lot of spectacular failures, but for every handful of failures there is always a show that pushes the boundaries of TV and helps to evolve the medium into something a little bit better.

Take Arrested Development for example. The brilliant FOX show that infamously lasted for two and a half seasons (while Two and a Half Men went on to be one of the most successful-yet-awful shows around) pushed the boundaries for the TV sitcom to unheard of levels, all the while getting support from its cult audience and a lot of famous comedic celebrities before it finally went off the air after just 53 episodes. What made AD so brilliant obviously wasn’t just about what it did, which was make people consistently laugh a lot each and every week, but how the show managed to do it. The laugh track was abandoned and replaced by a smarmy narrator, the jokes were delivered at rapid speed by an ensemble cast, and then things got really brilliant as the show progressed. The show’s constant use of running gags, callbacks to previous episodes, and clever puns and self-awareness were what made it hilarious, especially for those who had been following since the pilot. The show’s ability to blend this ludicrous family and their inappropriate situations with the occasional sweetness and drama that all sitcoms not named It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia must have made it great. The show’s ability to do all of those things and blend all of the episodes into one continuous story that was always moving forward but never forgot where it had been was what made it something special. Arrested Development was a triumph for what makes television great, and also a warning to all who try to enter the world of television of it can be dangerous to be too smart for the average television watcher.

Luckily, America seems to have gotten used to smarter television, and nowadays we seem to be seeing a boom in quality programming. Many sitcoms now offer the same smart comedy that Arrested Development gave us in the early 2000’s with their own nice little touches, such as the mockumentary filming style of The Office, Parks and Rec, and Modern family, the increasingly eccentric and meta comedy of Community, and the general bad taste found in shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Archer, and The League (if there is one thing that comedy on TV has learned from AD, it’s that Americans seem to love watching shows about people who are truly awful. FX has really thrived in that department). With fewer censorship constraints on basic cable, shows like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Justified and more have thrived in their ability to have a little bit more violence, swearing, and other adult stuff to keep the big boys happy. Meanwhile, premium cable (and its pretty much complete lack of censorship constraints) shows like Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, and Game of Thrones are killing it in the ratings department, getting plenty of acclaim from critics and viewers alike, and are leading to more people spending the extra coin to watch shows on HBO and Showtime. All the while, these shows are redefining what it means to tell a story, and more and more people are falling in love with TV all over again, especially since the film industry seems to be suffering a huge decline in watchable movies.

Obviously this isn’t a “new” thing; there have been great television shows ever since they started showing up way back when. Maybe they have that nostalgic feel to them that could obviously turn people off, you can still see the basic need for structure and story. I’ve recently been watching Frasier, and while it isn’t uproarious like some of my favorite current shows like Community, it still manages to win with charm and slight, almost unnoticeable goofiness. Plus, Frasier’s big source of physical comedy comes from the cute and diabolical dog, Eddie, and this is way before Tumblr started glorifying cute animals. Despite all of the changes going on in the world of TV, you can still find the similarities to old days of the idiot box wherever you go. It will probably always be that way, and there is no reason to fight with it. Maybe Frasier is more similar to Community than we could ever know, and if that is so, that’s probably a good thing.

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Last night I went over to a friend’s house to hang out after a long summer day of badminton and washers. He’s a great friend who can at times be blinded by stubbornness and his constant fear of change. This is especially noted in how he will refuse to eat seafood, watch sci-fi movies, or appreciate Tosh.0 for what it’s simplistic, stupid humor. One of my lone triumphs isgetting him hooked on Breaking Bad, which I am currently convinced is one of the best shows on TV today. While I took the iTunes route in watching Season 3 of the AMC series, my pal is receiving the show from Netflix, disc by disc. Our goal that night is to watch Disc 2, which I insist should be one of the most exciting in the season (it does, after all, have the brilliantly suspenseful episode I talked about earlier, One Minute).

After rolling through the first episode on the disc, we stop to grab some food. While the frozen pizza is cooking in the oven, I have nice chat with my friend’s mother about preparing for college and about the finer qualities of Disney World. As the pizza finishes cooking, we head back to the room housing the TV currently paused on the next episode of Breaking Bad. Before we start it up again, I have to get something off of my chest. Part of the reason I’m hanging out here is because of family troubles. As any red-blooded male would know, it’s hard for guys to talk about things like feelings or anything that may eat away at them if held inside, and the only way I could think of getting these things out was through the viewing of Breaking Bad. I got the idea from Bethlehem Shoals, an interesting sportswriter famous for founding the now defunct NBA blog Free Darko, which was best known for “using the NBA as a prism from which to view race, culture, politics, and almost everything else that really matters.”

Maybe that’s why I used the guise of Walter White getting into sticky situations with the drug world and the DEA to talk about my recent troubles at home. Sure, I didn’t actually use the show as a basis for the stuff that really mattered; I got my emotions off of my chest with the show paused for a conversation that turned into a ten minute therapy session. But the basis was there, and as it turned out, the situation for some the characters in the show turned out to be pretty similar to our own. As Jesse sat in a hospital bed fresh off his beating from Hank Schrader (which was caused by Walter in order for them to escape arrest in the previous episode) with Walt trying to get Jesse to drop charges on his brother-in-law (yeah, Hank is Walt’s brother-in-law) by allowing him to join forces, be partners again, with all the money being split in half. But instead, Jesse laments about how everything has gone wrong since Walt showed up in his life, and how everyone he ever cared for, everyone he ever loved, is gone. “I’m all alone!” screams Jesse, a character for which Aaron Paul would go on to win an Emmy for in Season 3. Just the night before, my parents were also lamenting on where they stood in life. They felt alone, too. And I’ve felt alone, and so has my friend. In fact, I’m sure we’ve all felt alone at one point or another in our lives.

Despite being a meth head with poor decision-making skills, Jesse still has feelings, and his basic problems aren’t that different from the problems a viewer will face in the real world, such as the worst feeling of all, the feeling that we are alone in the world. Perhaps that’s what makes a show great. Maybe it’s that ability to make us relate to the feelings the person on the screen feels, whether they’re a junkie or a saint. Honestly, I’ll never know, and neither will you. There are tons of things that go into making a TV show great, and that goes for movies, video games, and books to. It also goes for sports teams and the superstars who play them, and it goes for marriages and friendships and everything else that matters in the world.

So my friend and I had our heart-to-heart moment over a paused show about the dark world of drug trade, and then after that conversation we resumed the second disc of Season 3, this episode with an opening featuring a poor, unsuspecting police officer getting cut down by the ruthless assassins that later go after Hank. “I love this show!” I say aloud as the opening theme plays. “You can say that again” my friend replies.