Heh, thanks for pointing that out, I shall be sure to something important to mark such an occassi...Wow they sure are generous with the usernames said:
Oh my god! What am I doing!
Hello America, one question. Why do you ruin all your best television shows?
- Thread starter Daystar Clarion
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Oh my god! What am I doing!
As far as I can tell, British TV is more like a mini-series, where there's a set story that's told through the course of a few seasons, whereas American TV is a continuous story told for as long as the show can stay popular.
Usually, at least.
Usually, at least.
Because eventually certain mothers, mostly from California, happen to think these television shows are "corrupting our children." They move to have them removed and viola, there they go.
No problem, and I totally agree. This thread certainly isn't a dig at America, quite the opposite, the US have churned out so many incredible TV shows, I just hate to see them ruined by a desire for more money rather than trying to write something better.Witty Name Here said:
Atmos Duality said:
Not quite. House is still fairly good (though it's not as amusing as it once was), Boardwalk Empire is fantastic, Dexter is great, and The Walking Dead is fairly good.
Also, check out Life and The Wire. Both incredible shows which have now ended.
dude. Only white people liked friends. or seinfeld for that matter. Monty python is also really over hyped
not to be argumentative but Scrubs should not be on that list. it is one of the funniest shows I've had the pleasure to watch, and the one of the more creative. they actually ended the plot on a very definitive note: JD and Elliot are together, JD goes to other hospital, Turk is chief of surgery married to Carla, JD has kid Sam, and even Janitor gets married. Everyone has their lives, and because JD moves on, series ends. I do not count that bullshit continuation they tried to pull off with the new girl main character. That ran for like 4 episodes and died.Daystar Clarion said:
ANyway, you are otherwise totally correct. We milk 'em till they are bleed dry, because there's money in it. Sadly, the major corporations that "own" the shows would rather have the writers pump out crap until its not profitable anymore, rather then risk dumping money into a new creative show. Fox is biggest sinner in this regard. god... everything Fox does angers me...
i bolded the question wherein you actually answer yourself, albeit indirectly. basically, long-running series in the US are not written by a small stable of writers. shows like the Simpsons and Scrubs have been written by probably hundreds of different people. initially they may have only a few writers, but as those writers get bored/run out of ideas/demand a bigger paycheck, they are replaced by "fresh talent" that may be wholly wrong for the material they are writing. for more on that concept, read some of Warren Ellis' thoughts on comic book franchises.Daystar Clarion said:
It's simply because they will make shows as long as people watch them, long after the people making it still care. So you keep getting bad seasons after actors and writers leave because its still profitable. It is not so bad because it doesn't ruin the earlier stuff, but it does make it so the show makes proper closure while it is still good, and that is the most unfortunate part.
I suppose that's what differentiates American TV from British TV. Our shows tend to be written by small groups of people, who have spent countless hours on something they love and don't want to ruin it by adding a series that they don't have to. Not that the American writers don't love the series they are working on, but I suppose with so many people working on it, the quality will get diluted, as well as the best interests of the series and its characters.Jamboxdotcom said:
Talk about being left hanging.EcoEclipse said:
I think the BBC has left me hanging for some shows too. Paradox and Apparitions come to mind, there are others I cannot recall at this point.
Other than tv exec basically when they know they have a hit, at times they sabotage the show and cancel it two seasons in if the director or actors want more money.
The sad reason we will never have a hit like MASH again, yet the Simpsons is STILL on...
The sad reason we will never have a hit like MASH again, yet the Simpsons is STILL on...
yup, that's pretty much exactly the point i was trying to make. it's really the same thing with American comic books vs. manga. all manga (afaik) is finite. even long-running (even, arguably far too long-running) series like Naruto will eventually end. not so much something like Superman. no matter how many times they kill a superhero in an American comic, they never really end, at least as long as people are still reading them.Daystar Clarion said:
it all goes into intellectual property debates. despite being the country that fights hardest to prevent media piracy, America actually has an almost communist view of most IP. (ok, that may be taking it far to compare corporations to communism, but whatever...). even if an IP is "owned" by one or two people, there is often a corporation that has a controlling stake in said IP, and they will continue to milk it ad nauseum, with a revolving crew of writers.
