no more TV in the future? WTF?!

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by Dal Rassak, Feb 26, 2013.

  1. The Laughing Vulcan

    The Laughing Vulcan Admiral Admiral

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    Television is scheduled broadcast media, sent through UHF signal, satellite or cable, subsidised by advertising or public funding. The key word is scheduled. You watch at the whim of the broadcaster, not at your convenience.

    Everything else is video, whether it's your own PVR recording of a scheduled broadcast, a purchased DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, or download, or whether it's streaming on demand.

    The device that you watch it on is irrelevant.

    In current society, the former is diminishing in popularity while the latter is increasing.

    The lines blur though, as without scheduled broadcasts, you can't have time-shifted PVR, and there will be a lot less content to download or stream. And as long as there are live events, there will always be room for scheduled broadcasts. But I contend that television as I knew it growing up, really doesn't exist anymore.
     
  2. Gaith

    Gaith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well, one obvious answer is it would be awkward to hear of movies/series, but rarely if ever see them, due to budgetary restrictions on producing new content for such incidental purposes. And if you assume that many, if not most, movies of the future are projected in holographic 3D (and that classic movies can be easily automatically retrofitted for same)... goodnight Irene.

    Then you've got the utopian spirit that the Starfleeters would have evolved beyond things like TV and rap.

    I agree that holosuites wouldn't kill film - who would ever want to role-play a story like Psycho, or The Social Network? I think it's fair to assume that, like bonking, film viewing remains reasonably common off-screen.



    Agreed, though I imagine the Stephanie Meyers of the future would have to resort to holo-actors now and then...
     
  3. TheGoodNews

    TheGoodNews Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Yes, Guy Debord's and Raoul Vaniegem's wishfulfillment. The New Babylon Project realized.

    I remember a line from the TOS episode "Bread and Circuses" where a heavy mentions something to the effect that Cpt. Kirk wouldn't comprehend something as primitive as television.
     
  4. Xhiandra

    Xhiandra Captain Captain

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    I'm not so sure about that, honestly. When a game has a rich, involved story (MGS, Deus Ex,...), I do find myself drawn into it as much as in a good movie/series. Scratch that: not as much, more.
    And I don't miss details.

    Books are another matter. To be honest, if other media could reach the same standards of quality as literature has, I wouldn't read anymore.
    All the other aspects people like to hail as exclusive to books over other media have absolutely no draw to me; I just read because books are generally better written than scripts.

    Why is that? Maybe I'm younger than you (I'm 29) and my generation has different sensibilities from yours. In which case, a generation that grew up with holosuites (even if in their infancy; my first videogames rarely had much story at all!) could easily not see appeal in older media.

    The radio is dying a slow death, but be assured it is dying.
    Its last significant niche is in the car, and although it seems to resist the alternatives for now (CDs, MP3 players), it might not for long.

    The motions of CGI characters aren't programmed, they're obtained through motion capture, it seems a stretch to assume it'd be any different for holocharacters (that'd be really tedious and hard, programming every little movement), so actors wouldn't be out of a job.

    Yes, this is the last vestige of TV, and I do think it'll endure quite a while: it does allow an unparalleled level of passivity.
     
  5. stj

    stj Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Television and radio are advertising media. If the unspecified Federation economic arrangements don't use money, it is unlikely that they use advertising. Previous experience with mass media sold for content rather than advertising is limited to theater, magazines and novels.

    That suggests there would be far less content produced. The only regular contributions would be the equivalent of the old time magazines, like Saturday Evening Post or Charles Dickens' magazine, either featuring a miscellany of forms and content producers, or the opposite, a vehicle primarily for a popular favorite plus extras. Except even these equivalents would be less common, since there would be no advertising offsetting production costs.

    Basically I suppose that in a sense all productions would be amateur productions, relying upon personal initiative and whatever personal resources are available to individuals. It is true that Voyager's Author, Author! gave the Doctor a publisher, but it is hard to see what such a person did, or why he did it. But since the episode was yet another Voyager episode criticizing studio execs, it wasn't a seriously considered SF projection, not even in Trek universe terms.
     
  6. Dix

    Dix Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Well, I suppose in the ST future you can always replicate a TV set and enjoy movies or whatever. Like Tom Paris did in that episode Memorial. And didn't Archer and Trip watch some kind of sports game? Trip and others were also talking about some classic sci-fi movies that they were watching. And in ST: Generations there were journalists aboard, with helmet cameras and stuff. So, although the medium of television as we know it no longer exists in Trek's future (as Data informs us in that episode The Neutral Zone), it seems to exist in some form or another, and people do enjoy it occasionally as a form of entertainment.
     
  7. Pavonis

    Pavonis Commodore Commodore

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    Archer and Tucker weren't watching a broadcast game, they were watching a recording sent specifically for Archer. Hardly the same thing. Besides, since 99.99% of the time in Trek the characters are nowhere near Earth, they wouldn't have access to broadcast programming anyway, would they? Also, consider that the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th centuries are all very different, so it's not reasonable to assume that what exists in one would exist in all. For instance, films were still produced in the 22nd century, with awards going to the historical WWIII epics, but the only acting we saw in the 23rd and 24th were stage plays.
     
  8. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I perfectly understand why nobody watches TV in the Star Trek universe.


    In that universe, there's no Star Trek on TV to watch . Why even bother? ;)
     
  9. NeonMosfet

    NeonMosfet Ensign Red Shirt

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    TV is already dead. Welcome to the world of iTunes, Hulu, and the Redbox.
     
  10. The Mirrorball Man

    The Mirrorball Man Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Those are just different ways of watching TV.
     
  11. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    So the people of the Federation hear about the planet Risa solely through word of mouth? Seem unlikely, the place probably gets advertised as heavily as that Atlantis resort is today. If the future Federation has a recognizable economic system, professional entertainment would have to be financed somehow. The same for sporting activities.

    In the trailers for the next Star Trek movie, didn't we see advertising on the sides of buildings?

    :)
     
  12. xortex

    xortex Commodore Commodore

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    Plus everyone seeing the same thing at the same time and day of week etc. or what have you. Something in common to talk about even though the shows are delayed for days or weeks or are old repeats. It is ritualistic and a common collective unconscience.
     
  13. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Visual theater isn't likely to disappear, but TVs as we know them..yup, they'll be gone within 20 years.

    RAMA
     
  14. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I listen to the radio all the time. I rarely play CDs, I have such a fickle ear that wants to hear new (old) things. XM jazz and vocalists are the two biggies, plus local AM station for news, affairs, and, yes, old standards. I am only 46, by the way, but pretty much the guy in the Twilight Zone ep who finds the old radio.

    Oh, and TIGERS baseball! Soon.
     
  15. Melakon

    Melakon Admiral In Memoriam

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    Advantage of TV dying out: No reruns unless you want them.
     
  16. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Admiral Admiral

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    Yes. Network television is on the way out. Ultimately "on demand" entertainment will take over. However, I disagree with your assessment it will be within two decades.

    The only roadblock at this point is the infrastructure necessary to make the technology completely ubiquitous, and by that, I mean completely word wide. Otherwise there will still be some form of network television someplace.

    The cost and manpower necessary to accomplish that is extreme, and will certainly take a significant amount of time. Heck, I don't even know if it can be accomplished in the industrialized countries within twenty years.
     
  17. Star Wolf

    Star Wolf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Under this theory the "amateur" actor, director, producer can be just as professional as the starship officer. If everybody is in effect working for nothing it means little if one betters himself working a shift in a department on the Enterprise or he betters himself producing the future equivalent of a podcast
     
  18. TheGoodNews

    TheGoodNews Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Oh boy, imagine the possibilities:

    "The work of art of the future will be the construction of a passionate life." Raoul Vaneigem - The Revolution of Everyday Life.

    "This Society eliminates geographical distance only to reap distance internally in the form of spectacular separation." Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle - Thesis 167.

    "In New Babylon, all useful yet repetitive activity underwent automation; and technology, mobilized at the mass level, would release people from the daily drudge of necessity, guaranteeing a healthy dose of free time. There'd be big institutional transformations, too, like collective ownership of land and the means of production, together with the rationalization of the manufacturing of consumer goods, making scarcity old hat." GUY DEBORD by Andy Merrifield.
     
  19. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

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    The big rub is, there's still LPTV (Low-power television) for those wishing to have a kind of community TV not serviced by the big communication monopolies (especially since local access cable TV seems to have just died in North America). Perhaps a form of LPTV is still alive in the 23rd and 24th centuries.

    As well, not everybody these days can afford to be collecting TV shows on DVD or Blu-Ray DVD and Internet catch-up services. And we're still going to need 24 hour news services (in particular ones like Russia Today and Al Jazeera English) plus local LPTV versions-if there are any-that will tell the news stories that the big conglomerate-owned news outlets can't or won't do properly.
     
  20. Nightdiamond

    Nightdiamond Commodore Commodore

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    True.

    Trek had the right idea about technology changing entertainment, but I think it was based on the Trek 80's style Utopian view. It had a judgmental tone to it.

    Watching TV was one of those lazy habits that ancient humans participated in.

    Trek (TNG) strongly implied that people preferred putting on plays, live orchestra performances, etc. for entertainment.

    It was all Shakespeare and the arts, playwrights, classical music ect, etc.

    Not that it was bad, but I think they went a bit too far with it, especially on TNG.

    Never saw any internet surfing, socia media, or streaming entertainment through the computer.

    Interesting how in later series, they subtly brought TV back, like DS9 Quark's commercials over the public comlink, the Cardassians live streaming things, ect.

    Or in Voyager, where Paris watched TV and then gets the rest of the crew to join in.

    Ironically, as soon the utopianism feel wore off they went right back to things the fans could relate to.

    If reading paperback books survived, why not television? :lol:
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2013