TV SUCKS - IT REALLY DOESN'T, BUT STILL...

      I just can't get into television anymore and by that I don't mean to imply that I do not WATCH television. I do. Less of it than I used to, but it's still up there on my list of weekly time-wasters.

      The majority of what I watch now are comedies, and animated comedies at that. The newest show that's just-can't-miss for me is Louie on F/X, and that too, is a comedy. I don't really watch new dramas anymore. I think the newest ones were Pushing Daisies, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Reaper...all of which have been cancelled.

      I blame Babylon 5.

      Babylon 5 was a science-fiction series which aired from 1993-1998. It was conceived as a novel for television being five seasons long. Like a traditional novel (or play), it had an introduction, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a conclusion. I know the series was not presented with 110 completed scripts to Warner Bros. when originally pitched, they would be written later. I also know that the original plan was not executed. Characters left (and in one case returned) that weren't supposed to, necessitating the use of "trap doors" and such. Much of the series was actually written by its creator. But the show was tight and because of the outlines provided at the start for each of the characters, ample foreshadowing was permitted. Storylines were set in motion with clear goals in mind. It offered up a fantastic vision of what television could be, but instead we're left with the same shit almost fifteen years later. Because of Babylon 5, I can't watch shows like Star Trek anymore. I was already enjoying the X-Files while this show aired (as I was, still new episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager) and they were pretty much the last shows of an episodic nature that I was able to enjoy that weren't comedies.

      I wanted my dramas to be ABOUT something now and not just apparently about something like the conspiracy episodes of the X-Files which had an air of continuity but were in fact just being made up as they went along. The same with Star Trek. Because these series had so many writers and no one really in charge of making sure it all fit, they became messes with massive continuity gaps or worse, nods to continuity (the episode in which Captain Picard, after being scanned by a probe, lives a lifetime on an alien world in a mere few minutes in the real world and then somehow not only retains his position as a starship captain afterward [you might forget a few things after living sixty or so years of something else] but is noticeably unaffected by this afterward. He was tortured in one episode and suffers no PTSD-like symptoms at all. The list goes on...and on unfortunately). I'm sure there were continuity gaps in Babylon 5 as well, but what happened to the characters in the show remained with them, changed them, over the course of the narrative's five years. No one on that show was the same as s/he was when they first appeared. They grew and learned through their character arcs. It was wondrous. Could the same be said for Agent Fox Mulder, for Captain Picard, for Dr. Bashir, or for Commander Chakotay (or really ANYONE from the Maquis on that ship who all seemed to fall into line after the pilot and accepted the Starfleet way of doing things. Star Trek: Voyager could have been an amazing show exploring that tense dynamic as well as human ingenuity in the face of such a difficult journey home, but it failed so miserably by being just another offshoot of the Star Trek franchise)?

       LOST, however, is the worst of these shows. I was drawn into the series early. I didn't want to. I scoffed at it originally as Gilligan's Island redone as a drama but started watching more after catching John Locke's character mysteriously healed by the Island. The unforgivable sin LOST committed though wasn't that it was initially another serial drama with no plan attached to it. No, Damon and Lindelhof could not have foreseen their little show becoming a monster hit (no pun intended). Its unforgivable sin was that it did not become a planned series once it became ridiculously popular. There were enough elements in the first season for them to build a fairly good arc out of. The show, at that point, should have definitely become a show about something once it reached this point. Instead, it became a show about mysteries answered only with additional mysteries without ever intending a resolution. Its last three seasons, though...even if at this point still, the show was unplanned (and it was still very much off-the-cuff), SHOULD have had a plan. ABC renewed the show for THREE seasons. I'm not sure if that's precedented or not, but Damon and Lindelhof were given the green light for THREE seasons. I cannot stress that enough. It was guaranteed. Forty-eight scripts should have been penned right then and there and hashed out to get every detail right. There was no excuse for this not being done. Instead, the fans got nothing. A mystery show remained a mystery right until the end and no, that's not a good thing. Imagine any mystery ending without a resolution. That's not art...that's fucking over your audience. That's fucking over the genre itself. Just because life is full of unresolved mysteries doesn't mean you can get away with that bullshit in writing/television. They all go to heaven in the end. Holy shit, who gives a FUCK? That's not why we were watching the series you dipshits. It made for a fine epilogue, sure, but considering the failure to deliver on the rest of the show...I refuse to watch that series again and take it with me a reminder to not watch serial dramas again unless they have a plan to them right from the start like Babylon 5. I just can't be bothered with phony continuity anymore so instead I watch the Simpsons, Family Guy (and Seth McFarlane's other creations), South Park, Futurama, etc.

       I'll make an exception for a fun gimmick. That's why I watch House (and watched Pushing Daisies) although I would argue House is ultimately a comedy and thus excepted. I don't know. I'm sure I'm full of contradictions on what I do watch these days, but I have been remarkably consistent in being very selective about what shows I let into my life these days and it pisses me the fuck off that far too few people care about this sort of thing. I hear all the ranting and raving about True Blood and Dexter and can't help but judge these shows as the kinds of shows I'd rather not watch simply because I believe they haven't been planned out.

       Now, I'm willing to compromise somewhat. Babylon 5 was a fairly unique experiment that nearly failed in its mission (it was cancelled, forcing the show to wrap up story lines meant to wrap up in season 5. The show was picked up by TNT to finish out its fifth season, but it got lucky in that regard). However, this doesn't mean shows can't be planned out seasonally and each subsequent season building upon the last. An arc can be made over 22 episodes. That arc can climax for sweeps and can then deal with its consequences until the season finale which could set up the next arc. However, this is not done. It should be, though...