Is network drama TV dead because of censorship rules?

[JirinPanthosa]

You don't get ratings worthy of broadcast TV by showing nipples and dropping f-bombs, dude.

No but it adds an level of realism absent in other shows. For example, take the decent but sometimes anti-climatic NBC drama, Revolution.

Would the story had worked better if they were able to add in more realism in terms of profanity, violence, and even nudity into the show?

No. If you want realism, then turn off the TV and go outside. TV should offer a respite from "realism", which, sadly, it no longer does, which is why I never watch anything being made anymore.

It might be better to create a new topic for this, but the question of whether TV ought to be realistic is an interesting debate.

I like both realistic entertainment and fantasy entertainment, and both certainly have their place. And it certainly needs to be realistic enough to make the decisions made by the characters believable. If you don't believe the characters' decisions it's hard to care about them.

And certainly as realistic as you try to make your show look, there's always an element of unrealism, just because it's necessary to tell a dramatic narrative.

I've also noticed that when a show gets called 'Realistic' they usually just mean 'Depressing'. And when people say they don't want to watch realistic shows they often mean they want to watch uplifting shows where the heroes win. These two really shouldn't be connected. Good and bad things happen in reality all the time. The reason for the perceived shift toward realism in television is that shows like Full House are going away. That's not a shift toward realism though, it's just a shift away from triteness and away from characters and stories that are so idyllic they're completely unrelateable.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Americans "can" get upwards towards a thousand channels.

Wouldn't it be sad if every show on every channel was exactly the same?

 

[urbandefault]

Your horse is too high.

Read what I said again because we are in agreement.

I don't have a horse.

But I apologize for misreading. Carry on.

 

[DarthPipes]

You don't get ratings worthy of broadcast TV by showing nipples and dropping f-bombs, dude.

No but it adds an level of realism absent in other shows. For example, take the decent but sometimes anti-climatic NBC drama, Revolution.

Would the story had worked better if they were able to add in more realism in terms of profanity, violence, and even nudity into the show?

I mixed on the subject. If showing ass and dropping F-bombs is what it takes to get critical acclaim, that's pretty pathetic. But I find myself annoyed when I watch, say a cop drama, and the cops are talking the way cops talk. When the harshest world said is "crap" I do think the show loses something. Particularly realism.

In real life, people talk in a VERY un-PC way but you never see that on network television.

 

[tomswift2002]

In terms of the original post, I disagree that cable channels are providing better programming than the networks. At the same time I think the networks are looking for cheap programming, thus they go with a lot of reality shows.

That being said, in both cases in recent years I've found that neither option has provided decent drama's or sitcoms. "Big Bang Theory" I find horrendous and not fit to stand next to the great sitcom's of the past, such as "Home Improvement", "Alf", or "Three'sCompany". "Boardwalk Empire" and "Rome" relied more on pornography than any other series in the past.

I still find the 1950's "Zorro" to have created more compelling multi-part stories and more real than "Rome" or other more contemporary historical multi-part series that need to rely on CGI, foul language and sex.

To this day I still find a number of shows of the past to have been more finely-crafted than most shows that have been on within the past five years. For the most part, I watch my TV on DVD or Blu-Ray these days. Even when "Fringe" and "Smallville" were on, I would wait till the Blu-Ray was out before watching the new season.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Old is always better?

You heard about Danger Mouse?

(There's a thread about it here.)

30 year old British cartoon about a Secret Agent Mouse.

Over the course of a Nostalgia Week end, reruns of Danger Mouse scored the highest ratings in any genre, at any time, ever for that network ever in the history of that network ever.

This I find funny, Star Gate Universe was cancelled because it was losing in the ratings against reruns of Star Trek the Next Generation airing on an opposing channel at the same time.

Not funny, but certainly bitter sweet.

 

[Australis]

Re: Is network drama TV dead because of censorship rules?

No.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

TV should offer a respite from "realism", which, sadly, it no longer does, which is why I never watch anything being made anymore.

Maybe if you turned the TV on every once in a while you'd realize how ridiculous that remark is.

 

[Professor Zoom]

In terms of the original post, I disagree that cable channels are providing better programming than the networks. At the same time I think the networks are looking for cheap programming, thus they go with a lot of reality shows.

That being said, in both cases in recent years I've found that neither option has provided decent drama's or sitcoms. "Big Bang Theory" I find horrendous and not fit to stand next to the great sitcom's of the past, such as "Home Improvement", "Alf", or "Three'sCompany".

Wait. Did you just say ALF is great sitcom? Really? Seriously? ALF?

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's exceptional when you realise that they did all that from under a mountain of Cocaine.

 

[Professor Zoom]

It's exceptional when you realise that they did all that from under a mountain of Cocaine.

Less exceptional when you realize that Sorkin was under the same amount of cocaine and gave us the West Wing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

West Wing = Producer on Cocaine.

Alf = Half the adult cast of Actors on cocaine.



They're each working from opposite sides of the solution.